Children of the Legend: Drowning
by chibikurohikitsune and Nimeria
Summary: Delilah McKay knows that her best friend Ashlei has changed since she bonded to Atlantis. She also knows that Ashlei needs help getting back to normal, but she rarely sees the girl anymore. Sequel to Children of the Legend: Dawning. Full Summary inside.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **_Children of the Legend: Drowning_

**Summary: **Delilah McKay knows that her best friend Ashlei has changed since she bonded to Atlantis. She also knows that Ashlei needs help getting back to normal, but she rarely sees the girl anymore. When things get rough, will Del be able to overcome her own guilt and anger or will their friendship sink into nothingness.

**Rating: T**

**Disclaimer: **If I owned Stargate Atlantis, its people, places, or plotlines, I would definitely be living on the set in Vancouver and sleeping in a hammock strung from the Stargate. Since I do not live on the set in Vancouver and I do not sleep in a hammock strung from the Stargate, it can safely be concluded that I do not own Stargate Atlantis, its people, places, or plotlines. Though nothing will ever stop me from wishing I did.

**A/N: **Hi people. Nimeria's back and ready to go. Yay! I finally (FINALLY) finished this awhile ago. A very long while. The time lapse between now I can credit only to frantic end of school project work, long weeks (five out of eight) spent away from a computer, and frantic beginning of school work. I make no excuses. I procrastinated and this is what it got me. Terribly sorry. I should probably explain that all my writing is done in spiral bound notebooks in blue ink, something which confuses my parents and has, on occasion, irritated Chibi because I take her blue pens to write and never give them back. Sorry Twinie. I have tried writing in other colored inks (never in pencil b/c it fades and rubs off before I get around to typing stuff) and none of it is ever as good as the stuff that's in blue ink. But you probably don't care about that do you? You're probably sitting there at your computer wondering why on Earth I'm rambling on about nothing at all and wishing I'd just get to the story. So I will. In a minute. Two things real quick. First, I did not forget to write up my thank you's. They're just at the end because it was too much to stick at the beginning. Second, as promised, I dedicate this chapter to The Widget, who has created awesome stick doodles in my history notebook

ONE MORE IMPORTANT THING: AS OF SUNDAY, THESE STORIES ARE OFFICIALLY ALTERNATE UNIVERSE STORIES. THEY PROBABLY WERE BEFORE THAT, BUT SUNDAY MAKES IT A DEFINITE. I'M SURE WE ALL KNOW WHY. I'M TELLING YOU ALL THIS BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO CREATE CONFUSION.

THANK YOU

And so now, without further ramblings I give you the prologue and first chapter of

_Children of the Legend: Drowning_

Prologue:

Nikki strolls calmly through the hallways of Atlantis. She is supposed to be looking for her mother, but she doesn't think the older woman will care that much if she is a little late. If she does, well, it's her own fault that she failed to set time and place for a meeting in a city where you can be intending to go one place and end up somewhere else entirely because you ran into someone.

The young woman manages to walk all the way past one of the doorways before the scene inside registers in her head. Nikki backtracks and peeps her head into the room to be sure she isn't hallucinating. Sure enough, the group of children is quietly and calmly sitting around the old woman. When she thinks about it, Nikki realizes that it isn't as surprising as she had originally thought. The children love stories, and the old woman always has them. She was about to leave when the old woman looks up at her.

"Well, are you joining us or not, dear? I can't postpone this forever you know, they'll get antsy." The old woman gestured to the children around her who are now looking at her with curiosity. She recognizes her own children among them.

"Ah. No, I'm…I can't. I'd love to really, but…" Nikki trails off.

"Nonsense. Always time for a story. Now come, sit." The woman's smile is so sweet and her offer so enticing that with a sigh, Nikki walks over and joins the many children on the floor.

"Just for a little while." The auburn haired younger woman says, though it sounds more like she's trying to convince herself than anyone else.

"Of course. Now, let us all bear with me a moment as I summarize everything that has happened up until this point. Hmm, how to begin. Ah, yes.

"The story began on a sunny day here in Atlantis. Ashlei Sheppard, daughter of General John Sheppard and Doctor Elizabeth Weir, woke up to slight technical problems with her lights. She calmed the lights and then went to wake her two friends Rayne Dex, daughter of Ronon and Teyla, and Delilah McKay, daughter of the infamous Rodney and a lovely doctor named Marissa. The three of them convinced General Sheppard to take them out to the mainland to go surfing.

"While at the beach, Colonel Marcus Lorne radioed the General to come back because Atlantis' mainframe was crashing. The group, which included both Ashlei's brothers as well as Rodney, Teyla, Ronon, and Rayne's younger brother Jet, rushed back to the city where Sheppard ordered his daughter and the other children to either return to their tower or stay in the Jumper Bay while he and the other three went to do what they could to help. Never having been the type to stay out of things, the girls sent the boys back to the tower so that they, at least, wouldn't get in trouble. Del then used her radio contact her older brother Caleb and find out what he could tell them about what was going on.

"After making contact with her father and putting forth a theory on what was happening, Ashlei stumbled into a series of secret passageways that appeared to run the entire length of the city. The three girls used the passageways to get to Del's lab where they learned more about what was happening. Ashlei suggested a course of action that was violently shot down. Despite both of her friends and even her mother arguing in her support, the General refused to allow his only daughter to sit in the Chair. As Ashlei was quick to point out, he was clear on the other side of the city and couldn't do a thing to stop her.

"In a rage, Ashlei used the secret passages to get the Chair room. She made contact with her father one last time, and in that contact he tried to convey his feelings and his reasons behind them and she tried to show him she understood. Showing a level of maturity beyond her age, she asked her father again to allow her to sit in the Chair, and this time he agreed. Ashlei sat in the chair, closed her eyes, and waited for something to happen. To her surprise, when she opened her eyes she found herself in a virtual park. Confused, she was soon greeted by an avatar of Atlantis herself.

"The avatar explained to Ashlei about the Voqui gene the girl had inherited. She explained both the reasons for the gene's development as well as how the girl had received it. Atlantis was about to explain her reason for sending the city into the distress it had been in to get Ashlei's attention when Ashlei nearly collapsed in pain. In the real world, time was passing much faster and Del was attempting to disconnect her friend from the chair. Atlantis assists Ashlei in getting a message to her father to tell Del to stop.

"Once Ashlei has mostly recovered from her ordeal, Atlantis tells her of the impending storm. The terrible storm that comes once every twenty to thirty years was again on its way toward Atlantis. Ashlei is told that they have two months to discover a way to protect themselves. Ashlei leaves the virtual world and warns the senior council. She has a heartfelt conversation with her father in which he apologizes and she understands and new freedoms are granted.

"That was where I left off. I'll pick up a good deal later than that, solely because I have nothing to tell you of the time between then and where I shall continue from. I was young myself and therefore don't remember much and unfortunately, no one was particularly interested in recording that time. Now, if you're all comfortable, I shall continue my tale of adventure and strife.

**Chapter 1: Delilah**

The word hectic does not even come close to describing my life right now. My life is so far beyond the non-descriptive "hectic" that it's not even funny. First there's the impending threat of the storm. Then there's the problem of analyzing the readouts from when Ashlei Sheppard bonded with the city, readouts that everyone else has since given up on caring about. But the thing that's causing the most stress right now?

Finals. I hate finals. You spend the entire school year learning all these facts only to forget it all from the stress and confusion of having so much of your score depend on one test. This leads to all night cramming sessions and less sleep than normal, which isn't much as it is. Normally, if I kept this up, Ashlei would drag me down to Jeffrey Magnin's office. Dr. Magnin is the guy who took over when Laura Cadman, now Laura Beckett, retired. Ashlei would drag me down there, tell him I have insomnia, and then leave me to his mercy. Or she would, if she was around.

I suppose I should really just be glad my brother hasn't noticed yet, which is a miracle in and of itself. I hardly ever get to see Caleb now that the teachers have stepped up the work and the classes themselves for finals. With that in mind, it's another miracle that he hasn't gotten Ashlei, his spy eyes, to snitch yet, but like I said, she's hardly around these days.

If and when Caleb ever finds out, all the stress from finals, the pressure I'm putting on myself with the readouts, and all the worry about the storm will take a backseat to his anger and consequently my dad's…and possibly Ashlei's dad's, too.

But I guess I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Del McKay. My given name is Delilah Janine McKay, but no one outside my surrogate family has _ever_ made the mistake of calling me Delilah twice.

My father, the infamous Rodney McKay, has never been sure whether to applaud my delinquency in gaining revenge on the people who call me 'Delilah' or to be upset about it. In the end, he usually settles for some kind of happy medium (not his normal fortè) by telling people he grounded me but in reality just telling me that if I snuck out, not to get caught.

A glance at the clock next to me tells me it's about noon, almost time for lunch. I'm currently slouching on one of the fold out couches up in the lounge area of the tower. This particular couch has its back to the TV, facing more toward Caleb's room at ten o'clock. My feet are up on the coffee table and my laptop is in my lap, the screen showing one of many diagnostics I have run on the chair readouts in the month since Ashlei bonded to Atlantis. I haven't learned much beyond the fact that I shouldn't be worried that anything is seriously wrong with my friend's head, a notion I have always and will always continue to debate.

Ashlei spent the first week in the infirmary, letting Carson run a whole myriad of test on her. He probably would have kept her longer, but we kept helping her escape. Eventually, she got so sick of the infirmary that, after Carson banned us, she convinced her father to help her escape. Carson muttered something about it being a "Sheppard thing" and gave up on keeping her there.

The Daedalus left three weeks ago, one week after the bonding. It will return tomorrow, bringing with it the fourth member of Ashlei, Rayne, and my little group. She lives on Earth but every summer her parents send her to Atlantis because she likes being here and hanging out with us. Her parents want her on Earth during the school years so after her finals they let her leave and before school starts back up in August, she goes back.

A whirr-swoosh noise behinds me signals that someone else has just transported up here. Turning to look over my shoulder, I feel my face pale slightly. It's Caleb. Caleb, who is supposed to be in his one on one Genetics class right now and looks seriously pissed. This can only mean one thing. Ashlei and/or Rayne finally told him. I flip the laptop off and close it quickly. This will go easier for me if Caleb doesn't know I'm working during my one period of the day off, not counting lunch of course.

"Delilah Janine McKay!" He growls as he reaches me. I flinch slightly at the use of my full name. "What exactly are you thinking?!" He doesn't elaborate. He doesn't have to.

I know perfectly well that staying in the lab until at least midnight and getting maybe four hours of sleep before getting up again is a bad thing. I know that between school and the lack of sleep we're all already suffering because of worry about the impending storm is going to cause me to pass out from fatigue if I don't ease up. I have to pass finals and I can't do that if I'm in the infirmary. I know I am the only person who still cares about the chair readouts. I know that if I end up in the infirmary for fatigue and sleep deprived sickness, Dad will lose what little calm he has. I know that he won't be able to concentrate anymore, and I know that then we'll all really be in trouble. I know all this, and Caleb knows I know it, which is why, instead of saying all of this, he just repeats his question.

"What are you thinking, Del. What could you _possibly_ be thinking?" He's so angry now that he's gotten quieter. His blue eyes, only a shade or two lighter than mine, are narrowed and he looks ready to do whatever it takes to make me stop working, stop stressing, stop fretting. Based on this assessment, I decide not to play coy.

"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't doing it on purpose?"

Caleb's eyebrows shoot up in disbelief and he opens his mouth to tell me off before seeming to reconsider. His face softens and his posture relaxes. He walks over and sits down next to me, sliding an arm around me and pulling me into a one-armed hug.

"Del," He whispers softly in a tone that shows he understands "everything's gonna be alright, okay?" He kisses the top of my head. "I know you're worried. We all are, but the adults have dealt with stuff like this before. They'll figure it out and everything will be fine." I pull away violently before he even finishes speaking.

"How can you say that?" I demand, angrily. "How? I have finals next week that I'm currently incapable of even making myself study for. In two weeks a storm of epic proportions is going to hit the city and they still have no idea what they're going to do to protect it. Ashlei is hearing a voice in her head that she says is the city, but how do we know, Caleb? How do we know? Ashlei has a strong enough Ancient gene to have caused all the problems we had on her own. Not," I cut him off "from the mainland perhaps but I overheard Radek telling Dad that, according to the diagnostics, the city shut down was activated on a time delay _before_ we left that morning. She could have done the whole thing without realizing it and that would mean she's just imagining the voice. What if she has a serious mental problem and we just can't tell? What if her mind snapped when I tried to disconnect her from the chair. She was screaming, Caleb. Screaming like I have never ever heard her scream before. What if-"

"That's what this is about? You think you may have made her insane?" He ask quietly. I don't respond but he knows me well enough to take the silence as a yes. "Del, she's not insane. Carson ran test after test on her. General Sheppard has admitted to occasionally hearing a very faint noise, always indiscernible, that was voice-like at the back of his head since the day he set foot here. Even pretending, just for a minute, that she had gone insane…" he pauses for a minute "you did the right thing."

"She told me not to freak out. Made me promise, and then I did it anyway and nearly killed her! You want to know the worst part? If the General hadn't told me to stop, I wouldn't have. Even with her screaming and the failing vitals, I wouldn't have stopped." I am shaking in an effort to hold back my tears. What I had done that day was a horrid, terrible thing. Yet still I had the audacity to call myself her best friend. My brother puts his arms around me and pulls me close again.

I lose control completely and start crying unreservedly. Caleb only hugs me tighter. A month of pent up emotions of frustration, guilt, anger, and anguish have finally forced their way to the top, and I am unable to stop the flow of tears. Caleb holds me close through the entire ordeal, whispering soft reassurances. Eventually I calm down and Caleb loosens his hold on me.

"Are you alright now?" He inquires, using a soft gentle tone he only ever uses with me.

"Yeah." I sniff, rubbing frantically at my eyes to dry them. "Thanks Caleb."

"Hey," He smiles kindly "what else are big brothers for? Don't!" He adds quickly to keep me from answering with my usual sarcasm. He stands up, shaking his head and pulling me with him. "You and Dad, it's like sarcasm is all you know. Now that I have you taken care of, I have to go explain to Carson why I missed class and _you_ need to go meet Ashlei and Rayne for lunch." He starts walking toward the transporter as I gather up my stuff. "Oh, and Del?" he calls back over his shoulder, "don't yell at them too much. They have your best interests at heart, okay?"

"Oh, I suppose." I sigh overdramatically. Caleb chuckles and shakes his head again before turning and activating the transporter. I put my laptop into my bag with my notebooks and other class stuff, grab my jacket and pull it on over my white shirt and cargo pants that are the school uniform. If one could call a white shirt and cargo pants a uniform. I slide my feet back into my tennis shoes and head for the transporter, swinging my bag over my shoulder as I go.

Halfway across the room I think the transporter doors open and grin happily when it works. One good thing about this whole Voqui-bonding deal between Ashlei and Atlantis is that all the systems and things Ashlei uses continuously work better and are more responsive. The lights are brighter, too. Previously undiscovered rooms and areas are popping up and Dad says that it's much easier to use the database and the Ancient interfaces.

On the other hand, not all of the devices and things that they find are safe and Ashlei's bond to the city is still too weak for warnings about those things. As a result, she's been spending hours in the control chair and because of the difference in time flow, she's missing classes, so she may not pass finals. Last but not least, Ashlei herself has changed. She's quieter, less adventurous. Rayne has noticed too and we agreed that it's probably because she has a basic idea what's behind every new door that gets opened.

I step into and activate the transporter, having it drop me off as close to the mess hall as I can get. When the doors slide open again, Rayne is leaning against the opposite wall, waiting for me. Ashlei is noticeable only by her absence.

"Where's Ashlei?" I'm sure I already know the answer, but I have to ask anyway. Maybe she's just gone off with her brothers or something. The look on Rayne's face denies me even that small hope.

"Where she always is, nowadays; the chair room." Seeing the look on my face, she adds quickly "She tried, Del, she really did. She was here, even. But then Dr. Summers, one of the agronomists who works with the people on the mainland, came by with questions about the function of some machines down in one of the newly discovered labs. She, Dr. Summers that is, thinks they might be for food production, but she wanted Ashlei to interface with Atlantis to find out for sure. Ashlei really really tried to say no, but Dr. Summers wasn't having it." Rayne tries desperately to placate me, but I'm so irritated and angry again that I don't care.

"Whatever. Let's go to lunch." I snap.

"Del-"

"Save it, Rayne. I've had it. Lunch." I walked away. Actually, a more accurate definition would be that I stormed away.

I realize that this sounds harsh, getting so worked up over Ashlei missing lunch, especially when she didn't want to. The thing is, I see her so rarely these days and I was looking forward to enjoying lunch with her. But fine. So be it. Ashlei is now officially on her own.

End Chapter 1 

**Thanks: **First I'd like to thank my beloved Chibi for the use of her blue pens as well as for the first bits of beta-ing which she would do when I was too lazy to write and she needed something to do so she'd grab my notebook. Often without my realizing it until she gave it back.

Second, I'd like to thank my dearest Bann. Both for her excellent beta-ing skills, which I'm sure have more often involved her sitting there going "what the heck is she talking about" than I would like to admit, and for honestly telling me things like "if you put one more nickname in here I will be most displeased" and "this is more a you tantrum than a (fill in name) tantrum" among other things. Again, this happens more often than I'd like to admit, but my cope method is writing and sometimes I don't manage to separate my own irritations from the character's that well.

Third, I'd like to thank all of my lovely reviewers whom I cannot name at this moment because I don't have your names right in front of me, I really don't want to butcher them, and my internet connection is down so I can't look. Thank you. You know who you are. I really do enjoy getting feedback on my work, and I take constructive criticism well. I really do. I'm not going to freak out if you tell me that so-and-so's line in such-and-such chapter seemed out of character. I'm actually very glad to know that you're reading my story so closely that you can tell. So please, bring the constructive criticism if you feel it's needed. As for flames…well…if you want to waste your time reading my story just so you can find the faults and point them out to me, I'm not going to complain. Just be aware that your flame will be used to cook s'mores.

Until Next Time,

TA!!!  
P.S. I've become obsessed with the British originated Doctor Who as well so if any slightly British sayings and phrases crop up that's why.

Nimeria


	2. Dynamics

**Disclaimer: **If I owned Stargate Atlantis, its people, places, or plotlines, I would definitely be living on the set in Vancouver and sleeping in a hammock strung from the Stargate. Since I do not live on the set in Vancouver and I do not sleep in a hammock strung from the Stargate, it can safely be concluded that I do not own Stargate Atlantis, its people, places, or plotlines. Though nothing will ever stop me from wishing I did.

**Rating: T**

**A/N: **Hiya, people. Woohoo!! Chapter two!!! Okay so…what to say about this one… I don't think there's much to say really. The content speaks for itself I believe. All the same, don't jump to any conclusion about anybody at this point. Remember, this is still early in the story, and the characters have had a month and a half you haven't seen to get to where they are. If you have any doubts about anyone…try to remember what they were like in the last story. That's all I gotta say.

**Thanks: **As always to my lovely Twinie, who is doing her best to keep me sane through the school year. She's doing a wonderful job. To Bann, who is my lovely beta and who is keeping the story conducive to the plot, despite my ramblings sometimes leading elsewhere. I dedicate this Chapter to her and her willingness to print this stuff off and beta in a day and a half to have it back to me before she leaves again. Thanks boss! Also, thanks to Widget for the introduction to the "watch-a-movie-while-chatting-online", it's great fun.

Now, on to chapter two!

**Chapter Two: ****Dynamic****s**

I was so angry at Ashlei that I'd forgotten that I had been a little angry at Rayne, too. Not that I had a terribly good reason to be. Rayne had, over the course of the last few weeks, put her negotiating classes to work in keeping Ashlei and I from blowing up at each other. Rayne, who had worried and fretted over Ashlei as much as I had; Rayne, who, no matter what I did or said, always forgave me. Why should I be mad at her?

I stopped dead where I was and waited for Rayne to catch up. "Sorry." I apologized. Rayne looked taken aback, but she recovered as quickly as ever, seemingly fully able to understand what had just gone on in my head.

"It's alright, I understand."

"You shouldn't have to. I'm just so irritated."

"Believe me, Del, I know exactly what you mean. But she is trying." Rayne assures me as we enter the mess, get our food, and sit down at an empty table.

"Is she really?" I demand as the two of us start eating. "Ashlei never goes anywhere unless Ashlei wants to go. Yet now she's 'being forced' off to random portions of the city." Silence floods the area around us until we finish eating.

"The old Ashlei may have been that way, but she's changed Del. We've talked about this." She attempts to reason as we get up and dump our trays.

"I _know_ we've talked about it. It bears repeating. Physics now, right?" I add, changing the subject.

"Yes. Maybe she'll be there."

"Don't count on it."

"Del," Rayne sighs. "Leave her alone. Let it go. She didn't expect things to turn out this way anymore than anyone else did."

"Mmm." I shrug, not saying anything one way or another, but my tone still expresses my doubt on the matter.

"Del!" Rayne snaps. "She has the shape of the city on her wrist. She keeps getting pulled away from what she wants to do to tell people if it's okay to _open doors!_ She doesn't want this and if you were ever to take a moment to listen to her, you'd know that!" The obvious irritation from the normally calm and collected Rayne shocked me. It caught me so off guard that I couldn't say anything, so the two of us continued toward Physics in an awkward silence.

The mark Rayne mentioned is on the inside of Ashlei's wrist. I want to say it's her right wrist, but I never really paid enough attention to which hand it was she was waving in my face. The mark is one of the reasons Carson was running so many tests on her. We missed it in all the excitement over the coming storm and the fact that the city is sentient. Or, I should say, we missed it at first.

Ashlei woke up around noon the next day and immediately noticed a tenderness in her wrist. She looked down and there it was. The edges of the mark were sort of fuzzy. It was almost bruise-like. One of the main reasons Carson was so concerned was that it started out a sort of purple-black bruise color and ended up a pale shade of blue, sort of like how veins look through skin.

Carson was never really sure how it got there. Had it just been a bruise, he wouldn't have worried, but when the mark turned that pale blue instead of fading, he got curious. It wasn't a burn mark and there wasn't any dye of any kind in Ashlei's skin. It was a mystery and Carson had eventually given up on it. Ashlei, on the other hand, never cared why or how; she just wanted it gone. Ashlei was more irritated by the mark than I could find reason to explain.

For now, the mark serves to let Ashlei know when Atlantis wants to speak with her. Carson says that it's likely that it will continue to fill this purpose until Ashlei's link to the city is strong enough that she no longer needs the mark.

Rayne's voice pulled me from my reverie.

"Rodney" she greets. I look up in time to catch my father's short nod of acknowledgement. His eyes, once they meet mine, never stray. He looks, in a word, pissed. "I'll go over there for awhile." Rayne shoots me a supportive look as she beats a hasty retreat.

"I've just spoke to your brother, Delilah." I wince slightly at the use of my full name. This is worse than I originally thought. With a name like Meredith, my father fully comprehends my desire to go by some name other than my given one. Because of that, he usually just calls me Del… except when he's really mad. At this point I have the choice of either being evasive or being straight. Given the options and the anger and irritation I can see in his eyes, I opt for straight.

"Then you should know he already talked to me and we came to an agreement."

"Yes, he told me. It doesn't matter. You can't keep going like you have been. It's exhausting to you and to the people around and to me because I have to keep hearing about it. Not to mention it certainly isn't healthy. Sleep is important. Believe me. It's like a new recharger battery for a laptop…You know what? Never mind what it's like! You need to stop worrying about everything and just go get some sleep." His tone is growing harsher by the sentence. "You-You just concentrate on school, you eat meals, and you sleep. That's it. Just-Just leave the rest to the adults." My temper flares as he ends his tirade.

"Adults?" I glare. "And which adults would those be? The General? Elizabeth? Radek? Carson? You?!"

"Yes. Them. And me. Certainly me."

"NO! Certainly_ not _you." I'm snarling now and I realize it. I don't really want to be, but at this point my temper is taking control of my words. "You, with your precious lab and your precious work and your precious plan. You, who are trying to fix this and trying to plan this or save that! You don't care about what happened to Ashlei that day anymore than anybody else does. I'm the only one who cares about it anymore!"

"Del. You're too involved in this. Leave it to people who can think clearly about it." The look in his electric blue eyes, eyes that I share, softens slightly as he thinks he's found the root of the problem. He thinks he knows what wrong with me. I'm not having it. He doesn't know. He doesn't have the slightest clue.

"Oh and what people would those be? The same ones I mentioned before? The ones who really _don't _care?! You alone are so busy that I _know _you aren't getting much more sleep than I am."

"I have the fate of every single person in this city resting on my shoulders. It makes it kind of hard to sleep!"

"I may have the fate of my best friend resting on_ my _shoulders! How easy do you think it is for me to sleep?"

"That child is fine! _You _are the one I'm worried about."

"I don't want you to be worried about me. There's nothing wrong with me!"

"Well, you can't always get what you want now can you." He steps back, rests all of his weight on one foot and crosses his arms. This argument is going downhill fast. When he stands like that it's meant to indicate to whomever is arguing with him that he is not going to waver from his position and they may as well just give up.

"Oh, that line again. You should really come up with some new material. You're too predictable."

"Delilah." He sighs, exasperated. "Look, I know you're worried but will you just leave it to the people who know what they're doing and aren't just going to screw things up worse."

"You mean you? How can you say that? Even now all this time later how can you possibly say that you won't screw it up after what-" I stopped short, horrified at myself. The final words of that sentence presented themselves to me easily, and that just made the shock all that much worse. 'after what happened on Doranda,' I was going to say. To scream, really. I had to get out of here. Get away from him. He could never know that I knew about that. It would have upset him so much just to know that I know about what he considered his darkest hour. Yet, here I was, ready to shove it in his face just to win an argument? "Look," I mumble all the fight having left me completely. "Just…just leave me alone. You don't know anything. I have to go to class now."

I turn around and run away from him as fast as I can. I ignore his angry cries for me to come back, that we weren't done. I'm surprisingly anguished by what just happened. To think that I can lose control so completely that I become willing to hurt the only person in this city who really seems to get me. The man who loves me unconditionally, who does anything and everything he can to protect me. The thought hurts. I shudder; a stinging at the corner of my eye suggests that I may be close to crying.

Two hallways later, Rayne, who had moved farther away the louder my father and I had gotten, grabs my arm as gently as she can to keep me from running past her. She's glaring at me.

"Del, I wasn't listening but it was hard not to overhear. I have to know." There is something so demanding in her voice that I realize that attempting to walk away at this point is not a good idea. "Your lack of sleep, the frustration, everything…does it really have to do with school and the storm as much as you keep telling me, or is it something else?"

"Rayne, I don't know what-"

"I want the truth." She snaps, looking so scarily intense that for the second time today (and please note that it is extremely bothersome to me that it's happened twice in one day) I give in and tell her.

"In all complete and total I'm-not-holding-anything-back honesty, it's mostly Ashlei." I admit dejectedly, the indifferent act I've been working on maintaining falls away completely. "I mean, I know she can take care of herself and all, more so than quite a lot of the younger population. Present company excluded, of course."

"It's debatable. Continue."

"It's just…you've seen how she's changed. She's gotten so quiet and nothing seems to excite her anymore. She's practically sunk into some kind of weird depression. You know what depression does to people? It makes them want to kill themselves!" Rayne stares at me in amazement for a few seconds. Then she breaks into the loudest laughter I have ever heard from her. "Wh-at?" I demand in a tone that clearly questions her sanity.

"You-you actually-" she is appears to find it hard to speak through her laughter. She is laughing so hard that she is doubled over in seconds, one hand on the wall. I am quickly losing what little patience and amusement I had felt in the matter.

"Rayne, breathe." I bark. She only laughs harder, her eyes beginning to water. She starts to inhale sharply and clutch her sides. "Breathe, Rayne, breathe" I repeat, slight concern edging into my voice.

"An excellent suggestion, I think." A voice from behind us drawls, causing me to start in surprise and Rayne to choke on air, start coughing and fall to the ground. The man who had spoken walks over and pulls her to her feet. "Sorry, girls. I didn't mean to startle you." He apologizes, running a hand through his hair and making the normally messy half-silver hair even more so. The wrist of said hand bears a black wristband and the hand comes to rest on the back of his neck

General John Sheppard, the Military CO of the city, husband to its leader, leader to its flagship team, best friend to my father and father to my best friend, smiles in a way that is apologetic and yet not. A smile I only ever see him and Ashlei manage.

"It's alright, General." Rayne assures him as she catches her breath again.

"Now, what was so funny?"

"Del seems to think that Ashlei's suddenly going to become suicidal." She answers before I can even signal her to keep quiet. I sigh.

"It's a distinct possibility." I mutter, refusing to meet either of their eyes.

"Unfortunately," The General begins, and I look up at the tone. "Del's right." He has a very worried and concerned look on his face. The amused smile on Rayne's face disappears completely.

"What?" She breathes.

"Look, don't tell anyone else. I really shouldn't be telling either of you but I have a feeling you'd find out soon anyway. Carson has only just informed me that Ashlei has slipped into a low level of depression. She's mentally folding in on herself, slowly shutting everyone and everything else out."

Horrified, I share a look with Rayne. For a moment I see true worry and terror in her eyes before she hides it.

"Does he know why?" I manage to ask. I don't know how. I'm so overwhelmed now that breathing has become a conscious effort. My emotions are smothering me, drowning me in their sheer magnitude and strength. The General shakes his head in response.

"Not really. All he can come up with is she's dealing with an information overload that is causing stress to affect her physically as well as emotionally causing the trauma to manifest itself as depression…or something like that." He stops as a faint dinging indicates that Rayne and I are late to class. He snorts softly. "And now I'm sorry again. Come on, I'll walk you to class and smooth things over with the teacher. Where are you headed?"

"Physics." I realize that I've started to chew on my bottom lip, a habit which I thought I had broken. Trust Ashlei to be the one to restart it. The General's face gains a trace of its usual child-like glee at my response, but even I can tell it's forced. Following his example, I force myself to appear calm. A desire to somehow anchor these other two people who share my fear is overtaking me. Inwardly, I will worry, but outwardly I have to at least appear to be collected.

"Oh, good. I need a word with Scotes anyway. His assistant has been requisitioning stuff without authorization and you dad's about to pitch a fit over it."

"You mean he hasn't done it yet?" I remark, shooting for dryness. It comes out more as petulant. Sheppard smirks anyway.

"Anyway," Rayne adds, and she also seems to be forcing a happier mood. "Professor Scotes is taking the week off."

"He is?"

"Yes," I respond, honestly amused and attempting calmness. I wince as I accidently bite too hard on my lip. "I'm surprised you haven't heard about it yet because Dad's the one filling in."

"Yes, that is surprising." He muses. "But the truth of the matter is I've been so busy with Ashlei and getting ready to retire and Rodney's been so busy trying to figure out how we're going to survive_ this_ storm and the general city maintenance that we haven't really had time to talk." His face lights up as his smirk widens, and his eyes finally spark with a hint of the mischief that normally fills them. How does that saying go? You have to grow older but you don't have to grow up? Applies perfectly to the General. "All the more reason for me to come with you, right? Since we haven't talked in so long and all. And of course because he'll be upset because you're late. Hate to have him tear into you because of me. Especially since word is that you and he have already gone at it today."

"Ah, the speed at which news travels in this city." I say in mock admiration.

"It's more like gossip, really. True gossip, but gossip nonetheless. Travels twice as fast as the news." He quips back.

"He makes a good point" Rayne adds.

We had started walking when the General had realized my father was teaching. Normally, I'd be against letting him and my dad in the same room when the general had that trademark 'Sheppard Mischief' look on his face, but it would probably be good for both of them. Not to mention that it would give Rayne and I time to discuss what we were going to do about Ashlei. It would also give us time to let Britney Lorne and Ayera Zelenka get the two of us caught up on all the latest word in the rumor mill.

"Listen, girls." The General stops just outside the door to the physics room and, momentarily, loses the mischievous look. "I told you about Ashlei's condition because I think you can help her."

"Just tell us what to do and we'll do it." Rayne replies instantly. I 'mhmm' in agreement.

"I wish I knew what to tell you. Thing is, I haven't a clue. But you two are her best friends and if anyone can snap her out of this, I'm sure it will be you. I doubt event the boys have as much of a chance as you two. They baby her too much, not that I can talk really. The two of you have no problem making as much noise as is required. Consider it a mission from me. A secret mission. One that no one else can know about it. Elizabeth would kill me." I raise my hand and then grin when he reacts by raising an eyebrow.

"Request permission to physically beat sense into her, or let Rayne do so, should it become necessary." For a second he stares at me and then his eyes spark again as he responds to my attempt at lightening the mood. He nods.

"Permission to use force granted. Now let's get you to class." The door beside us swooshes open and we step inside.

End Chapter 2

**A/N: **Woohoo. We're just clipping right along aren't we? Well…I am. I have no way of knowing how the posting is coming at this point but I give you my word that I'm doing the best I can.

_**OH**_. Something I forgot to do earlier and for that I dearly apologize. A special thanks to lemons and wraith oh my as the only person not closely involved in the writing and editing process to actually tell me whether they'd rather have a long post or chapters. For that, the next chapter, whenever it comes up, is entirely dedicated to you.

Read and Review people I'm offering brownies for reviews this time. Oh, and flames will be used to make s'mores so…go right ahead. As always constructive criticism is more than welcome. Tell me what you liked, tell me what you hated, tell me what made you laugh, it makes my day.


	3. Gravity and Gossip

**Disclaimer: **If I owned Stargate Atlantis, its people, places, or plotlines, I would definitely be living on the set in Vancouver and sleeping in a hammock strung from the Stargate. Since I do not live on the set in Vancouver and I do not sleep in a hammock strung from the Stargate, it can safely be concluded that I do not own Stargate Atlantis, its people, places, or plotlines. Though nothing will ever stop me from wishing I did.

**Rating: T**

**A/N: **Right so. This chapter was much easier for me to write than the previous one. There's one more scene in this installment of the series that is going to be hard for me to write, but it's not for awhile. Between now and then it's smooth sailing. I am revising what I've written as I type it, which is why there's such a delay. As for this chapter… I guess the only way to describe it is as the result of everything that's happened so far and a desire to know more. Umm…it'll make sense later.

**Dedication: ** As mentioned at the end of the last chapter, this chapter is dedicated to lemons and wraith oh my. Thanks again! Oh, and have fun at that s'mores party. ;-)

**Thanks: **Bann, Chibi, Widget, and the girls who sat at a nearby lunch table while I was writing this and upon whom I often eavesdropped. You guys were perfect! Oh, yeah, and props to Pippin who gave me the title for this chapter.

**Chapter Three: ****Gravity and Gossip**

I probably don't have to mention it, but the second the door swooshed open, all heads in the room turned toward it. My father had even stopped writing on the board in the middle of a force equation.

"You girls are late." He needlessly informs us. He glances at Rayne and then motions for the two of us to sit down, his eyes never even stray in my direction. It hurts, but I can't blame him. He isn't the chief scientist for nothing. He doesn't know that I know about Doranda, but it wouldn't have been hard for him to figure out where my train of thought was going.

"Yeah," Sheppard answers from behind Rayne and me. We walk to our seats and sit down. "That was my fault."

"Not surprising." Dad snorts.

"And what does that mean, Rodney?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. You-" With the ease of years of practice, my father and the General fall into their usual banter. With the same effortlessness, I tune then out as I sit down beside Rayne at a three person table behind Britney Lorne and Ayera Zelenka, both of whom instantly turn around.

"Where is Ashlei?" Britney is Colonel Marcus Lorne's niece. Her parents died in a plane crash when she was twelve. Britney, who had been staying with a friend while her parents attended a convention for work, was sent to live with her only living relative here in Atlantis. She's from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in America, and when she talks she speaks with that almost Canadian accent I'm told is common to the area. I would know because my father _still_ sounds Canadian. Britney's isn't anywhere near that pronounced, but it is there. Britney herself has white blonde hair and soft blue eyes. She's tall and graceful. She's sweet, more so than a lot of the people I know.

"Britney," the girl sitting beside her responds before Rayne or I could. "Where do you thing she is?" This is Ayera, and she is an entirely different story.

Ayera is an off-world child. She was born and orphaned on a planet ravaged by the Wraith. Shortly after the Culling, one of the off-world teams visited through the 'Gate. There was a technical emergency. Dad was busy. Radek went.

I've been told that Radek has never really liked kids. I do recall when I was younger that he was always pleasant enough, but never really welcoming or happy to see us. For some reason, Ayera was different. He met her completely by accident. He was lost and she was hiding, from what he never found out. Supposedly, he fell in love with her the second he saw her, unable to resist comforting the terrified, strange little girl with pink hair and bright green eyes.

He asked for and attained permission to bring her back with him from both Elizabeth and the leader of the city where he found her. I was eleven at the time, but it would be impossible to forget Ayera's arrival in Atlantis. It wasn't a particularly notable day, just ordinary. There she was though, in the lab where I'd gone looking for my father, only to find him and Radek arguing over something. We sort of bonded during that. My father and her adoptive father, because Radek did adopt her as soon as he got her back to Atlantis, are in nearly constant debates over anything and everything.

Ayera, I quickly learned, is quite the little prankster. She has Radek as completely wrapped around her finger as Ashlei does the General. Like Ashlei, she never hesitates to exploit that. Unlike Ashlei, Ayera's reasons tend to be devious in nature.

She innocent-looking, short, and has a pixie-like face, but it's all a façade. Ayera is the one you can count on for practical jokes. She's the one you turn to when you need to prank someone, and she's the one you blame when you get pranked.

"If I knew I wouldn't have asked, would I?" Britney returns. From anyone else it may have sounded snarky, rude even. But not Britney, because she honestly didn't mean it like that. She doesn't really do sarcasm. She can understand it, but she doesn't see the point. If she asks a question, you can be sure that she really means it.

"Brit. Shush." I hiss, glancing up to the front of the room where the General and my dad are in full banter mode. "I'd really rather not have class today." _I'd really rather not have to talk to my dad right now. _I added mentally, just for the sake of honesty.

"Del, no one _wants _to have class when you dad is filling in for Scotes." Ayera digs in the bag beside her for her beeping handheld.

"Right. So shush." I repeat.

"Mmm." She hums in an 'I'm-too-busy-to-really-listen-to-you' way. I'm not sure if she picked that up from Radek or my dad. They both do it. I do it sometimes, too, when I'm not paying attention. Humming like that tends to get the point across that I'm not completely aware of what they're saying. "Apparently, Ashlei is in the infirmary because she nearly fainted." She says, scrutinizing the new message. I freeze. My eyes drift toward Rayne, and see my horrified look reflected in them. I manage to regain some sense of calm, remembering that, while Ayera had all the latest gossip, gossip is still gossip.

"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Britney asks her, though whether she's offended or concerned, I can't tell. I'm too worried that Ayera may have the truth to try.

"Because I only just found out." Ayera sighs, as if it should be obvious. She sounds calm enough, but I know her well enough to hear the anxious undertones in her voice. I eye the handheld with hopeful skepticism.

"Who exactly is your source?" Ayera starts to answer but Rayne cuts her off adding "Other than the Atlantis gossip network." to her original question.

"Hmph."

"Oh, come on, Ayera." Britney urges, sensing the seriousness of the situation.

"The message is from Alan, but it goes back through a lengthy line of people to someone who overheard a nurse talking to Beckett."

"I'll admit that Alan is mostly reliable, but the lengthy line of people and the fact that Alan told you when it concerns Ashlei is…troublesome." Britney frets. Ayera looks slightly affronted as she glares at her best friend.

"Britney's right, Ayera. Alan is reliable, but we all know how protective he and Aaron are of Ashlei, especially these days. No offense," Rayne shoots the pink-haired girl an apologetic look, "but everyone knows that if they tell you something it'll be all over the city in an hour, and I can't honestly see Alan wanting that to happen. My guess is that someone else may be using Alan's handheld to depart their own gossip through what you believe to be a reliable source." One of the many things Rayne has perfected is saying potentially offensive things to people without making it sound offensive. I, on the other hand, manage to make the inoffensive offensive. I realize that I've started chewing on my lip again.

I doubted the facts of Ayera's story. It's what happens when someone is so well known for being connected to the rumor mill. But I wasn't going to say anything about it. Partially because she had meant well in telling us and I didn't want to discourage her in the future. Partially because it's hard to talk when you're chewing on your bottom lip and can't quite seem to make yourself stop. Mostly, though, it was because the second Ayera had mentioned Ashlei's name in the same sentence as the words infirmary and fainted, I had once again been overwhelmed with a current of emotions ranging from anger to horror to worry to irritation. I was barely controlling my urge to just scream and I was afraid that if I opened my mouth to comment, I'd lose control completely. Words were circling my head like water flowing down a drain, but I couldn't make sense of them; I didn't want to.

So I remained silent, listening to Britney kindly criticize and Rayne reason and Ayera protest. At some point they moved onto other topics of gossip, likely because there was only a certain amount of time they could talk about things like that without getting depressed themselves, and they'd gone way past it. I nodded and laughed where appropriate, but I wasn't really paying attention and my heart wasn't in it. Rayne noticed, she had to have noticed, but she said nothing and left me be.

Eventually, the General left, grinning maniacally and leaving my dad slightly more than irritated and extremely annoyed. The bright side, if one cared enough to find it, was that we only had five minutes of class left.

"Alright. Pay attention." When only the four of us girls turned to look at him he snarled. "As sure as I am that you boys are having a highly important discussion, turn around and pay attention because the project I'm about to assign you will be half of your final grade." Immediately the two boys spun around and sat ramrod straight. "Thank you." He muttered, voice dripping sarcasm. "Now, your project is to create a working model of an amusement park ride form part you scavenge around the city. Before you delinquents go getting all excited, listen up because this next part is important. Don't just use any random thing you find. Make sure you know what it is and what it does first. If you don't, bring it to someone who can tell you. Not me." His glare clearly spelled doom for anyone who dared to bring things to him.

"Since most of you are natives of this galaxy by birth, should you not know what an amusement park ride is, see an adult. Ms. Lorne back there I'm sure would be willing to fill you in, but your other best bet is Senior Staff. Again, not me!" Laser blue eyes pierced the room. "And for God's sake, don't wander around outside the safe zones. Questionable structural integrity signs do not equal playground." The bell rings.

"Work in your normal groups. Rayne and Del fill Ashlei in when you see her. Dismissed." The six of us present grab for our backpacks and file out of the room. My father still isn't looking at me, but he said my name, so that's something at least. I have AP Physics next with Radek. Rayne has her Negotiation 101 with Elizabeth.

"Del, after History, why don't we go down to your lab and start to plan our project?" I nod in response to Rayne's gentle voice. She heads toward the control room and Elizabeth's office while I walk further into the Science Sector toward Radek's lab. Ayera follows me, her pink hair bouncing with every step as usual. She seems perfectly happy, but her bright green eyes are dulled ever so slightly with concern. She walks beside me in silence, which worries me more than the lack-luster shade of her eyes.

"Ayera, what's wrong?" She jumps slightly and turns toward me with a smile too bright to be genuine.

"It's nothing. I'm just thinking about the project is all. What do you think you'll do?"

"Probably a Ferris Wheel." I snort. "The General talks about them a lot and he'll probably help us out if we do one. You?"

"Dunno. Maybe I'll ask Dad here in a minute." She bounces slightly on her toes as she walks. I consider her for a moment before speaking again.

"Ayera, you do know he's supposed to actually teach me today, right?"

"Of course."

"You know he hasn't been able to teach for the past week, right?"

"Yep."

"You know this is your free period and you're meant to be relaxing and possibly doing homework, not bothering your dad and preventing me from having class?"

"Yep."

"You're going to do it anyway, aren't you?"

"Yep." Her eyes flash bright for a moment before dulling again, but the smile never falters as she continues to bounce along the hallway beside me. She continues after a moment and a glance at my face shows her that I'm not buying it. "Del, you're upset right now. I can tell. I always can. Even if you and Dad might be able to actually get some work done today on the ice machine thing, you shouldn't work when you're as upset as you are."

"Okay, first of all, it's a very complicated liquid nitrogen generator designed to freeze one of the little pool inlets on the piers so we can have an ice rink. Second of all, I'm fine." Ayera regards me sadly as she stops before the door leading to her dad's lab. She palms the panel and the door swooshes open. She steps forward but then hesitates momentarily, half in, half out of the door and looks back at me over her shoulder.

"You know, Del, it's funny. That's exactly what Ash told me this morning when I saw her and Rayne waiting for you to show up for lunch." She walks through the door and I stare after her, surprised and only vaguely aware of the late bell, chiming away and somehow sounding sad.

End Chapter Three

A/N: Shorter chapter I know. Sorry. I'm working whenever I have time, I promise. Not much I have to say about this chapter, it's all pretty much self-explanatory. Next chapter sets into the rising action of the plot, but it won't seem like it. Remember, Reviews are good. Tell me what you think. I like to know. As usual, flames will be used to make s'mores. Until next time!


	4. History and Holograms

**Disclaimer: **I still don't own Stargate Atlantis, its people, places, or plotlines. I'm still just borrowing them. Also in this chapter, I don't think I can honestly say I own the personality of the teacher. I did change him a bit, but most of it is his.

**Rating: **Still T.

**A/N: **This one is a little bit longer than others. I apologize. I couldn't find a good place to cut it off. Um…the first half of this chapter practically wrote itself. The second half took a little more effort on my part. It's been revised about four times before it even got typed, so already it's different than the original draft had it, but that's okay. It's better now I think. Enjoy!**  
Thanks: **Bann, Chibi, and the readers. I know you don't review, but the page hits make me happy enough. I assume that if you aren't flaming me, you don't hate it.

**Dedication: **Dedicated to my U.S. History teacher, whose personality heard that I was writing about a history teacher, came to my house, stole my computer, and wrote itself into the story. Thank you, Batman.

**Chapter Four: History and Holograms**

Everything after that passed in a faint blur. I was tired, irritated, and really didn't care about what I was supposed to be learning. Luckily, the word of Ashlei's fainting spell had spread through the city and Radek (with Ayera as a distraction it was beyond easy and I was grateful to her by the end of the hour) and Mrs. Eberly, who teaches Advanced English, took pity on me and let my inattention slide.

Mr. Delmonico, however, was not so lenient. Not, in truth, that I expected him to be, but I was so lost in my thoughts that I jumped about a foot out of my chair at his sudden, sharp "Delilah!"

"South." I offer, attempting to guess at the answer to his question. South was usually a good guess. Or any direction really, especially considering the multitude of events we had studied that took place on one of the piers. He stares at me for a minute before speaking, in a slow, exasperated tone.

"So, you mean to tell me that you think that the date of the arrival of the original expedition here in Atlantis was South?"

Okay, so maybe South wasn't the best guess. I groan inwardly and prepare myself for the coming tirade. "No, I don't."

"Then, why did you say it?" He demands. His face is serious, but there's a hint of a smirk in his eyes. Of course he's going to enjoy humiliating me, it's what he does. But, for some reason, even though I'm used to it by now, I feel defiance shoot up my spine. I glare at him.

"I wasn't paying attention and I just guessed."



"You weren't paying attention?" He asks, his voice oozing with as much sarcasm as I had ever heard my father manage, but less…lethal somehow. "Would you care to tell me why you weren't paying attention?"

"No."

"I didn't think you would. What's the deal? Daydreaming? Got a boyfriend, Tex?" Oh, God. The nickname. Why did he have to bring that up? He calls me Tex because apparently I'm as brash and brazen as any Texan he's ever met. Not that I know what that means, but every time I ask Kara she just dissolves into laughter and I can't get anything out of her. I suppose I could ask my dad, but he tends to be vindictive and the last thing I need is Delmonico ticked at me because my father reamed him a good one.

"No boyfriend." I respond, dryly.

"Daydreaming about having a boyfriend, then?" He asks; the insinuation in his voice irritates me. It's a perceptive tone, like he knows something. He may think he does, there's nothing to know.

"No." I repeat.

"Something more…intellectual, then?"

"No." Every answer, every no, is given in the same monotone. It has to be. Delmonico, well, he's kind of a sadist in a way. He loves mocking us. The best way to get him off your case is to just not give him the pleasure of seeing he is getting to you.

"So what were you day dreaming about, then?"

"I wasn't daydreaming. " I hesitate, and then, in a very fake tone, add rashly, "Sir."

"Well…" The silence persists and we have a lovely little staring contest. We do this rather often. Usually Ashlei is the one to break it up. Inappropriately timed and awkward questions have always been a specialty of hers. It doesn't matter what she asks, she does it in such a demandingly curious tone that even Delmonico has to turn to stare at her perfectly innocent expression. We are locked in our silent battle, waiting for the distraction. Waiting. Waiting.

Then I remember. Ashlei isn't here. For the first time, I am the one who breaks the staring contest.

"Sheppard, where was-" He stops short as he notices Ashlei's empty seat, and the two empty ones on either side that belong to her brothers. An unfamiliar look that may have been concern flits across our caustic history teacher's face.



"Mr. Delmonico?" I twist in my seat to see Janey Haskins, who is a year older than Rayne, raising her hand.

"What now, Haskins?"

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

"No, you should have gone earlier.

"But, Mr. Delmonico-"

"I said no, Haskins. Get over it." He shifts his gaze back to me. "Pay attention, now, and I want to see you after class." I sigh and nod.

"Yes, Mr. Delmonico." I say, sounding exasperated even to myself.

"Good, now. Where was I?"

"The arrival of the original expedition on July sixteenth, Earth year designation two thousand and four." I tell him, attempting to sound bored. He glares minutely at me for a moment.

"Well, at least you know. Now, Ayera, who was the military leader at the time?"

"Umm." Ayera, sitting right behind me, sounds anxious. She doesn't know who it was, but she knows it wasn't Sheppard. I wouldn't have known either, But, since her bonding, Ashlei has gained access to the best source of history. The city itself.

She's been looking at old mission reports and requisition forms and medical reports and everything else she can get her hands on. Hence how I know about Doranda.

Naturally, the General doesn't have a clue. He wouldn't be happy if he did. I'd almost venture to say that he would be angry. Very angry. There are things in his past here that he never wants her to know. Not an entirely uncommon sentiment for military parents, but now Ashlei can find out.

Because of Ashlei, I happen to know that the answer Delmonico is looking for is Colonel Marshall Sumner. I twist around and mouth the name at Ayera, she hesitates for a moment, confused, before deciding to take her one chance at an out.

"Colonel Marshall Sumner?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?" Delmonico asks, wanting her to be sure of herself and her answer before moving on.

"Telling?"

"Are you asking me if you're telling me, or telling me you're telling me?" He sighs, frustrated.

"She's telling you." I snap.

"Aren't you in enough trouble, Tex?" He demands as he turns around to glare at me.

"Never in enough trouble, Sir." I smile at him, infuriatingly. He opens his mouth to say something, and then seems to think better of it. He walks back to the front of the room and picks up a marker and starts drawing on the board.

"Ayera was right, though I'm not entirely convinced she came up with the answer on her own. Now," He switches topic so easily, it seems natural. "This is the sea floor and this is Atlantis." As usual the drawing doesn't look like much more that squiggles. As usual, no one says anything.

"Right," he continues. "So, Atlantis is here on the bottom of the ocean" he points to one of the squiggles "when they get here and, oh, wait." He draws another squiggle over the one that's supposed to be Atlantis. "Okay, that's the shield. So they show up and the shield starts failing." He uses his finger to erase various portions of the 'shield' squiggle. "So, you're on the bottom of the ocean and your shield is failing. What do you do? Haskins?"

"Um…"

"Um is not an answer. Haskins. Come on. Just think about it. What do you do?"

"…" The blank look on Janey's face is as amusing as ever. Delmonico sighs.

"Alright, Haskins. You're in danger. You're here in the city and you're being chased by a guy with a gun. Probably me. What are you going to do?"

"Hide. Duh." She responds, rolling her eyes. Delmonico's head drops and he covers his face with his hand.

"Haskins, go to the bathroom. Just go. Take your stuff, and don't come back. You're gonna fail anyway." He adds in a quiet mutter. Janey smiles happily, missing the insult, grabs her stuff and leaves. "Is she gone?" Delmonico inquires.

"Yes sir." I say, only a hint of a smile in my voice.

"Good." He removes his hand from his face and looks at Britney. "Lorne, Answer the question. What do you do?"

"Try to find someplace else to go." Britney replies easily.

"How?"

"Gate Addresses in the computer." She responds with the same ease. History is easy for Britney. She didn't grow up with all of the stories, but she has had a few history classes and she can make sensible deductions.

"You're exactly right. As soon as the expedition team realized what was going on, they started going through gate addresses. First one they chose to go to, who knows? Rayne, of course you know and for all the rest of you that's a hint. Eric?"

"Athos."

"Very good. They go to Athos." The bell rings. "Alright, that's it for today. Tomorrow's class will feature one of my famous Wraith invasion drawings, so don't miss it. Get out of here." We all pack our bags up and, while everyone else leaves the room, I head up to his desk.

"Ah. Del. Your essay, which is due day after tomorrow, is a five paragraph on why it is important to pay attention in class."

"Yes, sir." I start to walk away.

"Hey, Tex?" I turn and look at him. "I may not have been with the original expedition, but I've been here long enough to know that the Sheppard's are a very resilient strain. Even against all odds. So…don't worry too much about Ashlei."

"Err…"I stutter, at a loss for words. Had that just happened? Mr. Delmonico is erasing his board now and seems to be ignoring my existence. Okay, so maybe it hadn't happened.

I shake my head to clear it. Maybe I do need to get more sleep. I walk out into the allway where Rayne is waiting.

"What does he have you writing on?"

"The importance of paying attention in his class."

"Didn't you already do that?" She ponders, confused. The two of us start walking toward a transporter that will take us to my lab.

"Yep. So, my plan? Change a little bit, rearrange a paragraph or two, print it off, and hand it in." I not emphatically and step into the transporter.

"And if he happens to notice?" She cautions.

"I did exactly what he told me to." I shrug. "It's not my fault he's told me to do the exact same thing previously." We step back out of the transporter and walk down the new hallway. As 

we pass, my gaze is drawn momentarily to the section of wall behind which I happen to know lays an entrance to a set of secret passage ways. The entrance we had used to get to my lab during what ended up being one of the most troublesome events of my life, which, if you know anything about life in Atlantis, you know that that is really saying something.

Rayne and I enter my lab and I'm surprised to see a small metal disk sitting on the table next to my various ongoing projects. Rayne notices it, too.

"What is that?"

"I have no idea." I walk over to investigate and notice what I could not see from the door. The disk is lying on a note. Next to it sits a thin piece of plastic. I slide the note out from under the disc and immediately recognize Ashlei's scrawl of handwriting. I read it out loud for Rayne's benefit.

"'The disc is a holograph projector. Touch it and think on. It'll tell you everything you need to know. It shouldn't explode. Ashlei.' Lovely. It _shouldn't_ explode. Thanks a lot." Despite the overwhelming sense of worry and despair I've been walking around with since Physics, I have to smirk.

Only Ashlei would leave new gadgetry to tempt me and then taunt me with the possibility of it exploding. Only her. Whatever was wrong with her, it couldn't be too serious if she was still playing around like this. Some of the tension drains out of my body.

"What do you think?" I ask Rayne. She gives me a 'what are you waiting for' look.

Tentatively I reach out and touch the disc. When it doesn't immediately react or explode I close my eyes, brace myself for possible explosion, and think 'on.'

The instant I finish the word in my mind the device whirrs into life, spinning energetically, creating a holograph of Ashlei herself sitting on the table. The hologram looks so horrible that I hope beyond hope that it isn't actually Ashlei. The lines under the eyes are dark, the eyes themselves exhausted. There's a sickly look to its face and it looks too skinny for what I remembered even from a week and a half ago.

Then the hologram smiles and I know it's her. The utterly worn being in front of me is Ashlei, because that's her smile. Her 'I know you're mad at me and I'm sorry' smile.

"Hey." The hologram Ashlei speaks. "I'm really sorry about lunch. I swear I was there but-Well, I'm sure Rayne filled you in." Ashlei stops for a second and appears to be trying to figure out how to phrase what she has to say next.

"I've heard some of the rumors going around. Want to clear some stuff up real quick. The rumors that involve me passing out? Not true. Not even a little. The ones that put me in the infirmary? True. Carson had a few choice words for me. Apparently your brother feels turnabout 

for you is his game. He turned me over to Carson for not sleeping and not eating. Don't worry, Carson didn't seem to be after you." She trails off for a minute.

"I'm in the tower by now, I'm sure. Aaron and Alan brought me here to drop this stuff off and are planning to drag me up there as soon as I finish recording. There's a wholly unsophisticated and transparent plan to block every exit out of the tower to force me to sleep. They're so boring. Senior Staff is having another meeting, on the agenda is figuring out a way to work things out so I can go back to typical Atlantis life, sleep and then keep the Voqui stuff on the side instead of the other way around. Hopefully, tomorrow things can go back to normal, or as normal as things can ever be around here. The boys I believe are planning to let me out once I get several hours of sleep so I might see you tonight.

"This" and she points to the thin plastic "is my flashdrive. I talked to my dad and he helped me find some stuff in the database for the physics project. Basically what it is pictures of Ferris Wheels from just about every angle and a few documents on how it works. I figure that should be enough for you to start plans for ours. I asked Atlantis to look for places that would have parts we could probably use. Uh, that's pretty much all I've got for now. Oh, and, by the way, I made P.E. and Trig. before lunch. Carson said I wasn't allowed to go anywhere but here and then the tower after I left the infirmary so the rest of my classes were out. I'll see you soon." The hologram waves and disappears.

I stare for a moment and then sigh. It's very characteristic of Ashlei to choose this to be the way to tell me she found holograph projectors.

"She's probably already named them, Del." Rayne says, seemingly reading my mind. I snort my agreement and shift my attention to Ashlei's flash-drive.

Why she still has a flash-drive in a city where all students are given laptops for work and all one needs is a little bit of know-how to access the city hard drive is beyond me. Lately she's been using it to download mission files from the mainframe to look at in her spare time. How she's got room for it all I can only attribute to a compression program. Ashlei very rarely lets the thing out of her sight because some of what's on there is classified and she knows she shouldn't know. Not that anyone can gain access to random stuff anyway.

Ashlei's flash-drive has been encrypted to various exact computer coding. It only works on hers, mine, Rayne's, or Kara Mitchells's. Kara was the one who did it. She is extraordinarily gifted when it comes to computers. Better than me, far better. I can manage with them, but Kara hacked her way into the mainframe security system two years ago during a lockdown, something I could never and will never be able to say I've done.

I pick up the flash-drive and walk over to the desk my laptop bag is sitting on. I take the laptop out, power it up and insert the flash-drive. Rayne has a doubtful look on her face. She knows as well as I do how good Kara is with computers and encryptions. It's very hard to get past, but this is my computer and Ashlei did leave it here. Surely she wouldn't leave it if she didn't think I could get at the stuff she'd left for me…



Who was I kidding? Exhausted or not that was exactly something Ashlei would do. I sigh, open the drive file when it pops up and get ready to set to work. I'm surprised when not only do I not _have_ to work at getting to it, but the file labeled 'Ferris proj.' pops up right in front and loads automatically.

"Well that's different." I mutter.

"Yes. It is." Rayne responds, pulling a chair over and settling into it. The two of us spend the next hour clicking through the documents and schematics, pulling bits and pieces from each to get exactly what we want.

Ever since Ashlei's bonding to the city, as a rule, I keep a secondary program running in the background on an actual computer in a corner of my lab. This program monitors the city and alerts me when new rooms have been activated. My father actually wrote it years ago, though he refuses to tell me why, but he isn't using it right now, so I am. It gives me a possible idea of where I might find Ashlei.

The program starts chiming. Confused, I turn and stare at the computer. It's not supposed to chime. It's supposed to make some hellish noise designed to be heard over the din of the main science labs. I quickly notice that it's chiming because what's happening on screen isn't part of its regular program.

A single message in dark blue is slightly more than hard to read set against the lighter blue background color. The dark blue probably means it's Ashlei. Rayne gets up and goes over to the computer. She squints and the screen and twists her head slightly sideways.

"What's she saying?" I ask Rayne after a minute, giving her time to decipher the message.

"Aaahhhmmm. 'Have escaped brothers. Found room with stuff Atlantis says we can use. South Pier, second floor, main hallway, third door on the right. Bring flash-drive. Ashlei.'"

"Very Ashlei." I groan and lean back in my chair, scrubbing at my face with my hands.

"Mhmm. Shall we go, then?"

"Yeah. Not like we have much of a choice. We can't leave her down there by herself." I sigh. Quickly I save the plans for the project to Ashlei's flash-drive and to my laptop. I take the drive out and pack my laptop into my messenger bag and hang Ashlei's flash-drive from my neck by the lanyard. Rayne grabs her bag and the two of us leave the room.

End Chapter Four.

A/N: I'm so incredibly sorry about how long this took. I went on retreat and then a lot of things hit me at once. AP Prep sucks. Sorry again. Really hope this was worth the wait. Review 

and let me know! I love feedback! As usual anything constructive or supportive you have to say will be welcomed. Flames will be used to heat my freezing room.

I love March. Thank you.

Nimeria.


	5. Ashlei and Anger

**Disclaimer: **As usual, I don't own Stargate Atlantis or anything associated with it other than the plot to this story. If I did, I would not be suffering through the mental torture known as school.

**Rating: T**

**Author's Note: **I am, as usual, as sorry as I can be that this is taking so long. It is not in any way my intention. Even this close to the end of the school year, things are still crazy. Crazier, even, I think. I will try very hard to have this entire story up for you guys before the end of May…if I don't then there will be no posts between the twenty-ninth of May and the …I believe…ninth of June but I'll say the eleventh just in case. I will be out of the country without a working phone, much less Internet access. How I will survive this indignity I've yet to discern.

**Thanks: **Bann, especially Bann who has been so incredibly patient both with my typing and my editing, Chibi, and the readers. I know you don't review, but the page hits make me happy enough. I assume that if you aren't flaming me, you don't hate it. Also, ironically enough, the cast of the one act play I attempted to direct for stressing me out enough that I forced myself to find time to work on this to calm down.

**Dedication: **This time I think I'm dedicating to…yeah, everyone I've snapped at or been unpleasant to in the past two weeks because of the mood the play has put me in. I mean this as an apology and though I know almost none of them will read this, it makes me feel better.

**Oh,** and a separate special dedication and thanks to my AP English teacher without whom I would be completely lost. She always seems to know when I just need a smile and a wave or someone to talk to…errr…with whom I can talk.

So here's chapter number five.

**Edit: **I am so incredibly sorry guys. I started typing this early April and then got slammed with two projects and AP review and Two calculus tests in the space of two weeks. It was not fun and left me no time at all for such fun things as typing.

**Chapter Five: Ashlei and Anger**

Rayne and I walk in silence to a transporter and then out of the transporter again in the direction Ashlei had given. This time of night the city is rather deserted down in this area. Most of the scientists who work in this wing have gone to dinner

Rayne and I often walk in silence when just the two of us walk together. It's usually very comfortable for us. She has never been excessively chatty and it allows me to let my mind just run its course. One or two of my best history project ideas have come when I was walking in silence with Rayne.

Tonight, however, the normally comfortable silence is rife with tension. We're both worried, but we're both happy at the same time. Ashlei has the ability to invoke such conflicting emotions. I'm so glad that she finally seems to be breaking out of the funk she's been in over the last few weeks. At the same time, I'm worried that she's pushing too hard against her physical and mental limits to do this. That's something Ashlei would do.

"Del, you're doing it again." Rayne says quietly.

I realize as soon as she speaks that I am once again chewing on my lower lip and give a sigh. I notice the shadow of a smirk play momentarily across Rayne's face, but it never reaches her eyes and vanishes almost immediately.

If Ashlei were walking with us, we wouldn't be quiet. Ashlei doesn't mind silence and is capable of letting a comfortable silence stand, but she always seems to have something to say. A story or a question or a theory, something she wants our opinions on, something she wants to laugh about with us. For a moment I am so lost in reverie that I can almost hear Ashlei's laughter; musical, elegant in a way my friend rarely chooses to be. Ashlei is graceful, but she is rarely elegant.

She stunned every teenage boy in the city when she showed up to the prom mock-up in a dress and heels. Dark blue naturally, and of course her hair is too short to do much with, but she looked stunning, and the boys, so used to Ashlei just being another one of the guys hadn't known how to react.

Kara Mitchell had garnered much the same reaction for much the same reason. Kara has always been all energy and little elegance. Her grace is athletic, but she has a hidden poise to her. I've seen it only when she wears a dress. Kara has the natural beauty many would kill for and she shoves it away in favor of athletic build more suited to her ever-high energy levels.

Kara never lets us just walk in silence either, but I think the silence bothers Kara. I don't think its paranoia like it is for some people, I think she's just so used to a constant amount of noise that a lack thereof makes her uneasy. She does practically live at the SGC now that the program has gone public. She also has four siblings. I think just the way she lives has made a sort of subconscious understanding in Kara that silence is the calm before the storm.

Rayne and I round a corner and enter the pier's main hallway and all thoughts of the blonde earthling are washed away as I see Ashlei leaning against a doorjamb halfway down the hall.

"Hey." She greets, smiling and standing up straight. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd gotten my message. I would have used the radios, but the boys took mine and I'm sort of a persona non grata at the moment as far as being seen goes. Dad sent a memo around that if anyone saw me anytime in the next twenty-four hours they were to radio him immediately. I couldn't get a solid reason out of him. Something about half-crazed sleep deprivation, which is obviously not true." She smirks as we reach her and that's it. It's as if a dam inside of me finally gives and everything I've been holding in for the past few weeks comes pouring out all at once.

"Obviously?! Obviously?! What obviously? Obviously sleep-deprived? Obviously half-crazed? Which one Ashlei?! Which one is it that you think is so **obviously **not true?" My voice is dripping with sarcasm and anger. Rayne looks like she is considering stepping in for a minute, but doesn't and distantly I feel grateful for it. "Because from where I'm standing I think you **obviously **are both.

"Are you sleep-deprived? Hell yes. You sleep as much as I do normally but with everything that's been going on you keep getting woken up and pulled away. And now? Now you're depriving yourself of sleep willingly!" I open the eyes I can't remember closing and realize that she's been staring at me in surprise and shock since I started yelling. No, not yelling. 

Screaming. I can't remember ever being this loud before in my entire life. Not even this morning when Dad and I had…

Now that I've stopped for breath she opens her mouth to try to defend herself, but I can't let her have the chance. I have to say what I need to say now, or I have this horrid feeling that our faltering friendship will shatter.

"NO! You don't talk." I practically snarl at her before addressing the second issue. "Are you half-crazed? Beyond a doubt. As proven by the fact you're still trying to talk and the fact that you're down here alone and the fact that you're letting people boss you around and the fact that you're relying on Senior Staff to get people to leave you alone. Oh and this is all not including you're brilliantly suicidal idea of skipping almost every meal and the not sleeping.

"As for the idea of you running around the city when you shouldn't be, can you **say** secret passages? Hey, look around, isn't this area restricted? Not to mention the fact that your brothers are currently guarding your bedroom door so you won't leave. So at this point, I think saying you're running about the city half-crazed from sleep deprivation is a good assessment."

"Del, I—"

"I'm still not done, so you just shut up!" I growl. I glare at her and am surprised to see it work for once, but too busy venting to really consider what that means. "I was working on the chair read-outs when Caleb found me earlier today. I was trying to help you and my brother shows up and yells at me because **you** decided you needed to act like a five-year-old and be a tattle-tale. What is **wrong **with you?! What is your problem?! What is it Ashlei," I demand "because I really want to know!

"You've missed at least a week's worth of classes total since you bonded to the city. So you're probably failing your finals and all those airy dreams of yours of going back to Earth with Kara and enrolling in the Air Academy or whatever will be crushed because one, you failed and have to retake the classes and two, your dad will realize you aren't as responsible as he thought. You've lost the spark that makes you who you are. You aren't Ashlei anymore; you're just some shell of Ashlei. You're so worried about me that you have to get Caleb involved?" I snarl, voice oozing with disdain, anger, hurt, concern and a torrent of other emotions I could neither name nor count.

"Worry about yourself!" I finally stop screaming and struggle to get my heaving breaths back under control as I continue to glare at her. I'd managed to back Ashlei up against a wall (not an easy thing to do, with two brothers and the base military commander and expedition leader for parents it can be hard to convince her you'd actually hurt her.). I continue to glare at her and see a full range of emotions flitting across her eyes. Ashlei always has a perfect poker face, but her eyes are her tell.

Confusion, fear, and anger follow sorrow and pain before irritation finally wins over. Her hazel eyes finally spark to life. This is good. Yesterday she would have just apologized and walked away. Now, hopefully, she'll react like she would have before all of this. Come on, 

Ashlei. Come on. Please. Please. I watch as she undergoes some sort of internal struggle. Come **on, **Ashlei. Yell back. Fight back. Please.

It's a strange sensation, standing in a restricted hallway with two of your three best friends, knowing one is shooting you very disapproving looks and hoping with everything you have in you to hope with that the other will start screaming at you. It's an even stranger feeling to see the second friend's mask drop and honestly feel happier than you have in weeks as said friend practically growls at you and steps toward you and away from the wall.

"Who are you that you think you can tell me what to do?" Ashlei snaps, hazel eyes now flashing anger. "What makes you think you know what I'm going through? Why I am the way I am?" She steps toward me again and I'm beginning to see the downside of this situation as I realize that she sincerely looks ready to hit me. Her voice adopts a sarcastic tone. "OH, but I forgot. You're Del McKay. You know everything and you can do anything. Honestly, Del? You know **nothing!**" She spits the last word at me before proceeding further.

"You can't even keep a simple promise to your supposed best and closest friend." Her words are accompanied by a harsh backward shove. I'm so startled and her words hurt so much that I shove violently back at her harder than I had intended to just on reflex. She doesn't hit the wall but goes stumbling back through the open doorway, trips, and knocks her head against a control panel as she falls. She doesn't move once she hits the ground completely and, horrified, Rayne and I rush to her side.

The door swooshes shut behind us and alarms start going off, but Rayne and I are too worried about Ashlei to comprehend the amount of trouble and danger the three of us could be in now.

"Ashlei?" I call to her. I hear my own voice wavering as I shake her gently. "Ashlei? Ash, come on. Wake up."

"Ashlei." Rayne sounds much calmer than I do, as usual, which is good because one of us really needs to be calm right now and it most definitely won't be me. Rayne gently, but firmly, moves me out of the way so she can kneel next to Ashlei. "Ashlei, can you hear me?"

I'm trying very hard not to freak out at this point because I know doing so will only hinder Rayne's efforts, but I'm so confused and I've nearly bitten through my lip before I even realize I was chewing on it again. Everything had just happened so fast. We were yelling and then she shoved me. I guess I must have startled both of us when I shoved back because if she'd been expecting it she wouldn't have stumbled backwards into the room the way she had. She had tripped. What had she tripped over?

I look around at the floor between Ashlei and the door and almost immediately notice her bag sitting in the middle of the floor. Confused, I walk over to it. Why would Ashlei leave her bag on the floor? Why had she brought her bag down here in the first place? I stoop down to see what's inside but spin around at the sound of Ashlei coming to behind me.



"Ashlei?"

"Yeah?" She groans as she tries to sit up. Rayne helps her and Ashlei's hands instantly go to her head, clutching it through her short black hair. I walk over and sit beside her. "My head hurts."

"Well, I wonder-" I start sarcastically, but stop myself even before Rayne has a chance to glare at me. "You hit it on this control panel when you fell. I…uh….sorry about that, by the way." I grimace. Ashlei pulls her head up long enough to give me a reassuring grin.

"Nah. I left my stupid bag in the way." And that's the end of it. We'll still have to talk out the rest of the problems, but we'll do it civilly. I grin stupidly at her, glad to have my best friend back to semi-normal for this at least. She grins back at me and Rayne rolls her eyes muttering something about 'stubborn fools.'

At some point during the grinning and the mumbling we finally notice the alarms going off. They aren't loud enough to be painful, but they're loud enough I'm not sure how we missed them before. Rayne and I help Ashlei to her feet. She moves to the control panel and pushes something. Moments later the alarms stop.

"Ashlei, we should head back and let Carson have a look at your head." Ashlei starts to shake her head at Rayne's suggestion, but winces and stops. "You see?" Rayne adds.

"There's no blood." Ashlei protests.

"That we can see." I mumble. She doesn't hear me and continues.

"Come on you guys, our project?"

"Blood or not, it's better to have it looked at." Rayne starts toward the door, caramel colored hair fanning out in a wave behind her as she turns.

"But-"

"Ashlei!" I bark. She looks at me and twists her mouth sideways the way she always does when she's thinking.

"Oh, fine." She sighs when she realizes that Rayne and I aren't going to back down. The three of us walk to the door and I try to open it. Note the 'try' there because the door doesn't move. My ATA gene is nowhere near as strong as Ashlei's is. Mine is a genetic inheritance of a genetic manipulation. Or it's random. Ashlei's, on the other hand, is like a …supercomputer to my calculator. So I step away and let Ashlei have at the door. She tries a few times to no avail before the three of us groan and slump down against the nearest wall as we realize we're stuck in here.

"I guess the alarm was actually going off for a reason, then."

"No kidding." I don't mean to snap at Ashlei, but while I am not claustrophobic, I don't like being trapped places. I like having a way out. Especially in random unused rooms in the least used part of the city.

"Ashlei," Rayne interjects before Ashlei can respond to me. "Is there a secret passage out of this room?"

"Nuh-uh, but there is another way out." She gets up carefully, but not so much that I feel like I should be worrying about her having a concussion. She has a hard head.

I watch as Ashlei walks to where her bags is, kicks it out of the way, drops to her knees and starts pressing and prying at the floor.

"Ashlei? What are you doing? Where's the other way out?" I hold out my hand as I speak and Rayne pulls me to my feet. Ashlei apparently finds what she's looking for because she grins and suddenly she pulls up on a section of the floor her bag had previously been resting on and the floor lifts away.

"S'right here." She grabs her bag, slings it over her shoulder and starts down the ladder. I'll admit to a moment of wonder when I'd first entered the room why we were here of all places. The room is completely empty except for the control panel in the middle of the room that Ashlei had hit her head on.

I glance at Rayne who shrugs and gives me a look that clearly states we should just humor Ashlei and go with it. I sigh, shrug back, and start down the ladder after my friend. Rayne follows me and we slowly make our way down the long shaft toward the prick of light far below.

**End Chapter Five**

**A/N:** Again I apologize for the lateness of this chapter. Again I would like to forewarn you that the next chapter will also be some time coming as I am going to be out of town for over a week and a half. I will get chapters up as quickly as I can over the summer I promise.

Review! Let me know what you thought, because I can't quite seem to get a feeling out of this chapter. I don't love it, but I don't hate it.

Flames will be used to make popcorn.

'Til next time,

Nimeria


	6. Sinking Renewals

**Disclaimer: **As usual, I don't own Stargate Atlantis or anything associated with it other than the plot to this story.

**Rating: T**

**Author's Note: **Right, so. Back in town. Been back for awhile actually, but I got distracted from typing by various fandoms. Certain British TV writer/producers who shall remain nameless ((cough)RusselTDavies(cough)) are evil and need to stop toying with my mind. I realize it's fun to do, but really, I can only handle so much.

**Thanks: **As ever, to Bann and Chibi. To my readers. And also this time to B.O.W. for reminding me that I needed to write. And particularly to Bann for the title.

And so, without further delay, I give you part the sixth.

**Chapter Six: Sinking Renewals**

We travel mostly in silence down the ladder, the quiet broken only by my occasional queries as to 'how much farther do we have to go', 'where exactly are we going anyway', and Ashlei's answers of 'not much farther' and 'you'll see so shut up'.

Above us, the trapdoor has fallen back into place and we are trapped in complete darkness. At least, we would be if Ashlei hadn't had the forethought to bring a flashlight which she had stopped momentarily to fish out of her bag and was now holding between her teeth.

In reality, we have probably only been going down for a few minutes, but if feels like a lot longer before we finally get to the bottom. Not that getting there is in anyway a good thing. In retrospect, the entire idea is a bad one, but hindsight is always twenty-twenty, or however that earth saying goes.

I hear a splash below me followed by a "crap" in Ashlei's very worried tone.

"What do you mean 'crap'?" I demand. Anything that gets Ashlei worried is never good.

"Go back up." Is all I get for an answer. A glance upward shows that Rayne has already started back up the ladder, but I have a sinking feeling that it isn't going to matter. Minutes later, my suspicions are confirmed.

"The door won't open, Ashlei." Rayne calls down.

"Crap." Ashlei repeats with a sigh. I climb the rest of the way down the ladder and end up standing in very cold, knee-deep water. A moment later, Rayne splashes next to me. Ashlei is using the flashlight to see her way around the room and, after she walks around for a bit, the lights come on.

The room we're in is about medium sized with dozens of control panels running along the walls. I assume the room is fairly important. Ashlei sets her bag on a table and then turns the flashlight off and puts it away before starting to examine various panels.

"Ashlei," Rayne looks calm as she speaks but her voice is a little too shaky for me to really buy into the façade. "Ashlei, where are we?"

"Secondary control room to the underwater Jumper Bay." Ashlei responds distractedly as she continues to scan the control panels as if she's looking for something in particular.

"Secondary control room?" I repeat, surprised. I'd known about the underwater Jumper Bay and the Control Room attached to it, but I had no idea that it needed a secondary control room, much less that it had one.

"In case the first one is flooded or inaccessible. This is the Plan B, I guess. It's hidden and not on the schematics of the city. The main entrance is the trap door we just came down." I watch my dark-haired friend move from one panel to the next as she explains.

"It's not the only entrance, is it?" I ask grumpily.

"No. This room is connected to the secret passages and it has one other door." She points to what I had first thought was solid wall but which has a slit where the doors are. Thank God.

"Ashlei, if we have two other exits, why are we still in the room that's flooding?" Rayne's voice continues to shake slightly and I glance over at her to see normally very calm dark brown eyes flitting almost frantically from wall to wall. The water is now half way up my thighs. I climb out of it and onto the table where I sit next to Ashlei's bag. Rayne joins me quickly and the two of us listen to the other girl respond.

"Because." Ashlei mumbles absently. Rayne and I wait for our friend to elaborate.

"Because….why?" I prompt when Ashlei remains silent. She looks away from the panel she's examining long enough to give me a pained and slightly worried look.

"Because, that door" and she indicates the one I thought was a wall, "won't open while the room is flooded and I'm not entirely sure where it leads anyway."

"Not the Jumper Bay?" Rayne asks, just to be sure.

"Jumper Bay's that way." Ashlei points toward the wall opposite the door. Any other time, under better circumstances, I would have loved to see where the door led. However, the room is still flooding.

"Right. Well, no problem. Let's just take the secret passages." I state in a facsimile of calmness. "That'll open, right?"

"Even if the room is completely flooded, yes." Ashlei confirms.

"Then **why** are we still in the flooding room of freezing cold water?" I demand, repeating Rayne's earlier question. Ashlei repeats the same pained look she'd given me earlier which is when I finally realize that something is definitely wrong.



Mentally, I run over the last few minutes. She'd mentioned the problem with the other door very readily. She hadn't said anything about the secret passage entrance since she'd told us it was there. She was walking around in freezing cold water trying to figure out control panels. She keeps giving me these pained almost apologetic looks. In an instant, I know what's going on.

'_She's trying not to let me panic.' _I realize.

Ashlei knows I'm not good in situations like this and being as good a friend as she is, she's trying to hide something from me so I won't panic. It probably doesn't hurt that Rayne is claustrophobic and is beginning to very quietly freak out. All the same, we have a right to know exactly how much trouble we're in, and I know if I ask her outright, she'll tell me.

"Ashlei, why can't we just take the secret passage out?"

"I can't find that door." She moans helplessly.

"But, I thought…" I glance at the door she'd pointed out to me earlier in confusion as I trail off.

"That's the **other** door." Ashlei groans. "The one that **won't** open. I can't find the door to the secret passages."

"What?" I can't quite manage to keep my voice from shaking with my barely controlled impulse to panic.

"Normally, even if I don't know where the door is I can at least feel where the release mechanism is or should be. Only…right now…"

"You can't?" Rayne finishes for her questioningly.

"No." Ashlei shakes her head sadly. "I'm trying but…" She trails off.

"Oh, God." Rayne whimpers, pulling her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and resting her head between them. I awkwardly attempt to rub her back comfortingly.

"I'm so sorry, Rayne. I'm trying to find it, I swear I am, but I just can't." I can imagine the regretful and apologetic look Ashlei has on her face without having to look at her.

"Ashlei, you found that first entrance without having to sense it didn't you?" I ask, confused.

"I fell into it. I could try to find the release mechanism, but there are so many panels and controls in here that it could take forever."



"What are you trying to do then, messing with all the panels and controls?" My irritation momentarily overrides the growing sense of panic. Ashlei and her gene messing with panels and controls when she doesn't know what they do is never, ever good.

"Trying to figure out how to drain the Jumper Bay or force that other door to open so we can get out of here."

"Do you have any idea how to do that? Do you even know what that button you're touching right now Does?" I demand. Rayne remains silent, too busy trying to keep from having a nervous breakdown to argue with us or even tell us to shut up.

"Well, no." She says a little guiltily.

"Then stop. Stop before you create the opposite of what you want and drown us." She yanks her hand back obediently with a dead look in her eyes and a sheepish smile that seems forced. I sigh and slip off the table and into the still very cold water.

"What you want" I continue, slipping into the flow of explaining things as I work "is to force an override of the flood protocol. We could try to drain the Bay, but I'm thinking we have more of a chance with the override. Tell me you at least checked this part of the system out before bringing us down here?" I'm surprised when she looks hurt. I hadn't meant to upset her. All I'd done was react the same way I always would have, before any of this had happened.

"Is that really what you think of me now?" Ashlei sounds so hurt and betrayed that I actually start to wonder if she hasn't been handling this as well as I'd thought she had been. "That my bond to the city has made me so reckless that I would bring you down here without doing everything I possibly could to be sure it was safe?"

That dead look was back, hiding the hurt, hiding, I finally realized, everything. It wasn't a lack of emotion resulting from exhaustion, it was a defense mechanism, and I hated that. Hated that my best friend had been forced to create a mask to hide behind. Hated that I was only just now realizing that of the two of us, I had been the worse friend. I hated it, but the fact that I actually had to think about the answer to her question was what I hated most.

'_Do I think that about her?'_ I wonder. '_Do I really think she'd do that?'_

"No." I tell her, and I mean it. "I don't think that. I think that you're acting different, and I know that that worries me and I question your judgment and your sanity-"

"Hey!" She protests. I smile and see Rayne, who has finally lifted her head, do likewise. To my surprise, even Ashlei is smiling. In that instant I feel things slide from teetering on the edge of a cliff back onto solid ground. It's a different patch of solid ground then what I'm used to, but that's to be expected and its solid ground all the same. Unfortunately, I'm not done. I have to finish telling her what I started.



"I really am worried though, and I honestly have started questioning your judgment. But I still trust you. Blindly I trust you, and I'm not sure what scares me more: that I trust you that way or that even now I don't question my sanity for that trust." I smirk wryly and Ashlei smiles appreciatively in return.

"As happy as I am that the two of you are getting along" Rayne says, interrupting the moment. "Can we **please** get out of here now?"

"Right." I pull Ashlei's laptop out of her bag on the table and connect it to the panel closest to me. My own laptop lay forgotten in the bag in the room above. "So, we either need to deflood the room, or force that door open."

"Out of curiosity, because it's always nice to know the details of your death, -- where is the water coming from?" Rayne asks. I'm glad to hear that she's getting some control over the claustrophobia. There have been occasions in the past where she hasn't been able to and has gone a little mental on us. Ashlei nods to the wall she had indicated held the entrance to the secret passages.

"The passages connect to the Jumper Bay and the door has been open forever. That's part of why Atlantis pointed me down here, to close that door. Anyway, the passages are flooding with the Jumper Bay and I guess the water is leaking through. Which is another reason we should probably go the other way." Ashlei pushes an errant lock of hair out of her face as she finishes.

While she's been talking, I've managed to log into the city's mainframe. I work my way to the schematics for this part of the city and, like Ashlei had said, the room isn't on them. I feel Ashlei glance over my shoulder and know she must have noticed, but she says nothing. '_How the heck am I supposed to open a door that isn't on schematics? A door that, according to these plans, doesn't exist?'_

"Only thing about going the other way" Ashlei continues "is that I have no idea where it goes. I tried looking at the schematics for the secret passages" W_ell, there's a thought' _I think "but that hallway isn't on them either."

"It doesn't have to be there. If I can follow the passages on this level I should be able to find a hole in the schematics that doesn't correlate with a room. It'll at least give me a place to start working," I tell Ashlei in answer to a question she hadn't needed to ask.

"Wouldn't stopping the water rising be a better idea to do first?" Rayne pulls her long caramel hair up into a bun to keep it out of the water, which is waist level and about to go over the table. There's a slight chatter to her speech caused by the cold of the water from her pants had soaked up before she'd moved onto the table. The only reason Ashlei and I are even able to speak at all is that we've been moving around. Rayne slides off the soon to be useless table and into the water to move around to try to get warmer.

"Yeah, that-oh." Ashlei touches something and closes her eyes momentarily. She opens them and to my surprise, the water level stops rising. "Heh. Momentary flash of contact with 

Atlantis. It wasn't much but…if we can't get ourselves out of here within the next hour, she'll do what she can to alert someone, and uh- she'll try not to make it our parents."

"Oh…goody." The thought of how our parents will react to this is…terrifying at best. A beep from the laptop alerts me that I've managed to pull up the schematics for the secret passages, which is probably due to the fact that Atlantis is trying as hard as she can to help us. Ashlei has moved over and is now sitting on the table. She has an unfamiliar look on her face as she begins to speak.

"Look, guys. I'm really really sorry about this. I really am. I never meant for this to happen. I just…Everything's just been so hectic and we weren't spending any time together. I wanted to spend time with you and-"

"Ashlei, shut up." I cut her off.

"Del…" Rayne says quietly. I don't even look at them as I continue to work with the schematics before me, looking for the gap.

"Rayne." I retort. I notice the depressed look on Ashlei's face and realize how what I said must have sounded. "I didn't mean it like that, Ash." I sigh, using her nickname to help take the bite out of my earlier comment. "You can't beat yourself up forever. You are partially responsible for this, but so am I, and so is Rayne. You can't just take all the blame for everything all the time. It's not healthy. You need to stop and stop now." I stop working at the schematics to fix my friend with a look of sincere honesty.

"I don't-" She starts.

"You do." Rayne finishes. Rayne gently moves Ashlei off the table and pulls her away to talk to her while allowing me to work, but I manage to catch snippets of the conversation.

"…blame…yourself…craziness…bonding with the city…people who got hurt…blame…still getting hurt…trying to…everything…can't…hate yourself…" Rayne's voice stops for a moment as if she isn't quite sure how to continue now that she's said what she wants to say. I look away from the laptop to fix Ashlei with a piercing gaze, trying to find the words I need.

"Ashlei," I begin, gently "I was wrong earlier when I said you weren't responsible. The problem isn't that you aren't responsible enough; it's that you're too responsible. You have to sit back and let people do their jobs now. Despite what you may think, no one's blaming you for anything." Ashlei looks doubtful, but Rayne hugs her and softly continues to reassure her as I turn back to the laptop.

**End Chapter Six**

A/N: Yay! Done. Hurrah! I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, but I like the subject matter better than I liked the last chapter. The last chapter I just….yeah okay.



As usual any and all feedback you have will be welcome. Flames will be used to make the marshmallow icing to put on the ginormous muffins that I will be giving to reviewers.

Til next time,

Nimeria


	7. An Eventual Escape

**Disclaimer**: It's still not mine. I still wish it was. This appears to be a stalemate of epic proportions.

**Rating**: T

**Author's Note**: **IMPORTANT. SEE AUTHOR'S NOTE FOLLOWING CHAPTER.**

**Edit**: I'm so sorry. I meant to have this up weeks ago. But I started college and it took up so much more of my time than I was planning. Stupid college.

**Thanks**: Bann and Chibi, always and forever.

**Chapter Seven: An Eventual Escape**

I keep looking for the gap in the schematics. Eventually, I manage to find it. I pull up the corresponding part of the command system and get to work trying to find the command keeping the door closed so I can trip an override. Times like these, I really wish Kara Mitchell was a native Atlantean, instead of just a summer visitor.

Kara is amazingly gifted with computers. Amazingly. She doesn't even really try; it's just natural to her, an intrinsic talent. If she wanted to, she could be a very famous software programmer or such. 'The next Bill Gates' her brother says. 'Only less…eh, and more…pretty.'

She could be, but she doesn't want that. One, she likes it here. She would fully enjoy being able to live here when she gets a job and Atlantis isn't really conducive to the rich and famous Earth life. Obviously. Two, Kara, like Ashlei, wants to follow in her father's footsteps and join the Airforce. It is a source of much amusement to many around the city that General John Sheppard and General Cameron Mitchell's daughters have found such kindred spirits in each other, especially when Ashlei's and Kara's intended career path of choice is probably the last thing on the list either of the Generals would have chosen for their daughters.

"Why couldn't this have happened tomorrow?" I mutter as I continue my musings about Kara. The thought of the blonde and how easily she would be able to deal with this only serves to irritate me further.

"How would this happening tomorrow have made it any better?" Rayne demands, confused.

"Kara gets here tomorrow through the 'Gate Bridge." Ashlei shocks me by answering, before I can. I'm shocked, not by the speediness of her answer, but by the fact that she'd known at all. I was of the opinion she'd been too busy lately to have any idea how close we were getting to Kara's expected arrival. A glance in my direction and an almost smug look in my friend's eyes tells me that Ashlei knows exactly what I'm thinking about.

"Is that tomorrow?" Rayne asks in surprise.

"Yep. Her last e-mail mentioned something about not having snow days and having maintained a high enough grade in her classes to be allowed to skip finals." Ashlei continues to explain. I only half-listen to what she's saying as I keep working. I've managed to find the coding I need; now all I have to do is figure out how to trip the override. It would be a much easier endeavor if I could actually read what I was looking at. I sigh. "-last two years so her parents are sending her early even though she starts college this year." Ashlei finishes.

"Why can't we skip finals?" Rayne mutters, discontentedly.

"Because then the teachers would have nothing to do." I tell her dryly. "Ashlei, can you come see if you can translate this for me? It's all in Ancient." I glance at her as I ask and see a flicker of hesitation flash across her face.

"I can…try, but-"

"Ashlei, all you have to do is try. I'll understand if you can't. You've only just recently started learning Ancient." I say, stumbling awkwardly over the placating words that are so foreign to my personality. I'm not used to being the one to offer comfort; it's usually the other way around, but she's still fighting her funk. I drift back to the earlier conversation with the General and know that as much as we might have been kidding, I'd do absolutely anything if I could see Ashlei back to the way she used to be.

"What do we do if I can't" Ashlei asks as she half-walks, half-swims over to me. I shrug in reply.

"The last thing we want to do while in the off-limits area of the city."

"Call for help?" Rayne ventures.

"Yeah." The three of us take a moment to shudder at the thought of how much trouble we could get in for this. "Well? Anything, Ashlei?"

"Well," She tilts her head first one way and then the other. "I think I know how to translate it for you, but good luck figuring out what it means." She reaches across me and hits a few keys. A second later, the code is in English. I can see how Ashlei might have thought it was confusing, but I'm pretty sure I can figure it out.

"Thanks." I offer her a smile and she returns it. I have to wonder how long it'll be before she realizes we're tiptoeing around her and her feelings and, once she does, how long she'll continue to allow us to do so. I push the thought from my mind and start in on deciphering the code so we can get out of here.

"I have to say, I find this situation highly ironic." I hear Rayne sigh from the other side of the room.

"Do tell." I respond automatically, my eyes never leaving the screen as I sift through the code, looking for the specific part I need.

"Del, if you can't see the irony in the three of us trapped down here when I called you down here to escape, then I worry for your intelligence." Ashlei pauses for a moment before adding "Not that I don't do that, anyway." I glance up long enough to glare at her.

"Oh. Haha. You're hysterical. Oh. My side. How it aches." Ashlei just laughs harder at the sarcasm dripping from my voice. "Honestly, Ashlei, your ridiculously off base sense of humor never ceases to-" I stop midsentence as I find what I'm looking for. "Excellent."

"Did you find it then?" She asks, serious again.

"I did. It's about time, too. Give me a few minutes and we'll be out of here." Both of them remain silent as I work as quickly as possible. The water is cold, after all. As promised, several minutes later, I hear a watery swoosh.

I have just enough time to snag the laptop and the bag before I'm yanked off my feet and dragged out into the hallway beyond the door by the force of the water draining out of the room. Luckily, Ashlei keeps her laptop in watertight casing, otherwise we'd probably have been electrocuted and I would have wasted all that hard work. I stay where I land and try to regain my bearings.

Ashlei and Rayne ended up fairly close to me. The three of us lie in silence for a second. Then Ashlei starts laughing. Rayne soon joins her. I can't hold back my own laughter for long and soon the three of us are laughing so hard that tears are leaking out of our eyes.

"As unexpected as that was, it was rather fun." Rayne laughs. Getting to her feet, she pushes her now loose, drenched caramel hair back out of her face. She ties it in a knot at the nape of her neck, puts the now superfluous hair tie around her wrist, and then helps Ashlei and me to our feet.

"It was fun." I agree. "But I'd rather not try it again. At least not under the same circumstances." I snag her hair tie from her wrist and use it to pull my own dark brown hair out of my face.

"No kidding." Of the three of us, Ashlei is the luckiest as far as hair is concerned in this situation. With a single backward brush of her hand, Ashlei's black hair is slicked back out of her face. Not that it's really long enough to cause her too much grief. "At least we're okay, and, you know, not dead."

"It disturbs me that we live in a city where not dead is 'okay,' and 'fine' means conscious." My dry comment sets the two of them laughing again. This is how it's supposed to be with us. Get in trouble, get out of trouble, laugh it off. "Laughing lunatics." I mutter, which only makes them laugh harder. Shaking my head, I put the laptop into its bag, sling it over my shoulder, and set off down the hallway, laughing inwardly. They calm their laughter and follow.

"What do you think is down here?" Rayne wonders.

"At this point, I don't care if it's just empty rooms, as long as there's a way out." I tell her.

"Or a way to get dry." Ashlei adds.

"That, too." I allow, consentingly. I don't see any doors in this hallway, but it curves to the right up ahead and maybe there will be something around the corner. I try not to allow myself to think that we may have gotten out of the room only to get stuck in a blocked off hallway, but I can't quite stop the thought from trailing across my mind. What can I say? I'm an eternal, natural pessimist.

We round the corner and I let out a quiet sigh of relief as we see the door we'd been hoping for at the end of the hallway.

"Excellent." I have to grin despite myself. The door swooshes open and we step inside. "Cool." I breathe.

"No kidding." Ashlei nods in agreement.

"What is this?" Rayne whispers, as if in fear that her voice might dispel the image of what lay before us.

"I have no idea." Ashlei isn't whispering, but she speaks more quietly than usual.

"One would assume," I say with a pointed look at Ashlei, "that this would be the intended end of our little foray down here for parts for the project." I'd have thought that would be obvious to them simply because of what we were looking at.

The room was as big as the Underwater Jumper Bay itself, but instead of being full of Jumpers, it was full of two new kinds of ...ships. They were…different than anything we'd seen before.

One type seemed to be made of the same stuff as the Puddle Jumpers. They were smaller in size, and different in shape.

"These look like Darts." Ashlei tells me in the same hushed tone she'd spoken in before. There's an undercurrent of concern in her voice.

"They aren't." I assure her.

"Why would the Ancients want to mimic Wraith technology?" Rayne whispers.

"It's probably the other way around." Rayne's head twists toward me as I speak. "Well," I continue "the theory is that the Ancients created the Wraith, right?" She nods. "Then doesn't it make sense that at least some of their technology would be based off the Ancients?"

"But why is all this stuff down here?" Ashlei has wandered further into the room. "And what the heck are those?" She points to the other type of …craft.

The only thing I can think of the compare them to is something that we don't have here in Atlantis. Kara brought it with her on one of her visits. She brings a lot of things here. Partially because some of them she just can't stand to be parted from for the summer, like her skateboard. Mostly she says she does it because she thinks we're poor, deprived souls to have grown up without them.

This particular thing she had called a 'scooter,' but it just looked like a skateboard with a handle bar on a pole to me. The thing had run off battery power and Ashlei had gotten to be rather addicted to it.

"They look like that scooter thing Kara had that one time." Rayne says, echoing my thoughts.

"You know, they kind of do." Ashlei wanders over to one and stops just outside of touching distance. "So is this a bay for these things, then?"

"Actually I think it's more of a mechanic shop." I walk toward her. "I mean, look at all this stuff scattered across the floor. Those things don't look completely intact. Almost as if whoever worked down here left in a hurry. The Ancients were probably doing maintenance work on them when the order came to evacuate." I stop talking as I reach her. She looks around and takes in the general disarray of the room.

"Why would they be repairing scooters during a full-on war with the Wraith?" Ashlei ponders quietly. It's a good question, and one that I, unfortunately, cannot answer.

"Perhaps they did not cease work when the evacuation order came, but when the news of the war came. It was sudden, if I remember correctly, and their talents would have been needed elsewhere." Rayne offers. It's a very logical reason, but then, Rayne has always been the most logical among us.

"Oh." Ashlei agrees. "That makes sense." She pauses only momentarily before adding, "Is it safe for me to touch them, then?"

"What is it with you and your insatiable urge to poke things?" I demand. "Yes, you may touch it." I add after letting out an exasperated sigh. Ashlei may be turning eighteen in two months, but sometimes she acts like she's just turning eight. I tease her about it, but in truth, I envy that part of her character. It's something she shares with just about everyone else we know. Even Winter, who is probably the most aloof fourteen-year-old ever has her childish moments. I don't think my personality leaves room for such a streak of innocent joy to exist. Kara thinks I'm being stubborn.

Hesitantly, Ashlei reaches out to gently touch the thing before us. I bite my lip, nervous again, as Rayne joins us. Ashlei's fingers connect with the smooth side. I hold back a quite cry of surprise as the three of us stare in amazement.

**End Chapter Seven. **

A/N: Well, there it is folks. The escape from the room and the hopeful beginning of Ashlei's escape from her funk.

So basically you know how this goes. Review please.

Anything you have to say is as always welcome, but now things are going to change up a bit.

I'm in college now and I find myself with a good deal less time to work on writing than I used to have. I am NOT by any means saying that I'll only post if you review, because I think that's ridiculous and annoying. I'm not writing and posting this because people tell me to. I'm writing and posting this because I enjoy writing and I enjoy sharing what I've written with other people, both for their entertainment and to get some feedback. Again, I am NOT saying that you have to review. What I'm saying is that with my decreasing lack of free time, I have to prioritize. I will still be posting this story, and its two sequels as I finish them. I promise that it will be a completed series of four eventually. The difference is that if no one feels a pressing need for a new update, I will be posting them as I find time to write them and my beta finds time to edit.

IF, for some reason, any reason at all, you absolutely must see the next chapter as soon as possible, tell me so in a review, and I will do whatever I have to do to get it out ASAP. Even if it means staying up until one in the morning typing and begging my beloved beta to edit when she should be doing homework. Even if you just wanted hurried along a little, let me know and I'll do what I can. One of the advantages of being in college is that as long as your quiet, no one cares when you get up a four in the morning because you can't sleep and start typing on your computer.

Later!

Hearts Always,

_**NIMERIA**_


	8. Escapes and Explanations

**Disclaimer: **I don't own it. If I did, it would not be cancelled.

**Rating: **T

A/N: Hellooo my darling readers. I am in such a much better mood than I have been lately. I was overjoyed when, after posting the last chapter, not only was I not yelled at, but supported in the best way possible. Thank you. It makes me very happy. As a present and an apology for how long this is taking me, I have used my break to finish working on this story, so this post is the final chapter and the epilogue. The next installment will be called Calming, but I have barely started work on it because it requires quite a bit of back story exploration on my part for the characters. I wouldn't be looking for it before June. Other than that, I figure I probably said enough in the last chapter to cover this one. So here we go.  
**Thanks: **To everyone, but particularly Bann, Chibi, and lemons and wraith oh my. Your quiet, understanding support is appreciated at every turn.

**Chapter Eight: Escapes and Explanations**

At Ashlei's touch, the scooter-thing whirrs to life, dies, and falls apart at our feet.

"So, maintenance bay it is then." I say with more than a hint of disdain toward anyone who would leave such a piece of technology in such disrepair.

"Um…yeah." Ashlei's voice relays her surprise, even as she continues forward with what she, I'm sure, believes to be a more pressing matter. "So what are we going to call them?"

"I don't see a point to naming them if there aren't any that actually work." I raise an eyebrow pointedly as I look her. Inwardly though, I smile at the familiarity of her antics.

"Maybe there are more through there." Rayne says, pointing toward another door across the room.

"Maybe." I allow. "But while we're here we should grab stuff for the project." I drop to my knees and examine the remains of the scooter-thing. Ashlei flops down beside me, reclining on her forearms, legs stretched out before her, head turned up to the ceiling. I glance at her. "Thinking?"

"Mmm." Her response sounds neither confirming nor denying, but she drops her gaze from the ceiling to me, nudging a nearby piece of tech toward me with her foot. I consider it for a moment before deeming it useless and putting it aside.

I sort through the pile of debris in front of me and put anything that looks useful into the messenger bag at my hip. Most of what Ashlei continues to nudge toward me is useless and I have to wonder if she isn't doing it on purpose, but her gaze has returned to the ceiling. Rayne watches us, silent and interested. She chuckles when, at one point, Ashlei nudges a piece of gene sensitive debris toward me and it takes off, flying chaotically around the room. She ducks out of its way while Ashlei and I dive for cover.

"Ashlei!" I yell remonstratively, sitting up. To my surprise, she giggles.

"Whoops!"

"You did that on purpose!" I accuse, throwing myself to the ground again as the thing comes flying at my head. She smiles innocently at me and I sigh as I manage to grab hold of the flying thing and think it off. Whatever Rayne had told her earlier had connected somewhere then. I look over to where Rayne has wandered, amusedly avoiding the flying death part. Her brown eyes catch mine and I nod at her slightly. _Well done, _I think, _well done. _ She nods as if she understands and then returns to investigating the door she had pointed to earlier.

Ashlei helps me pick out a few more useful pieces of debris and then the two of us join Rayne by the door. She activates the panel and the three of us walk through. The next room is full of both types of the craft we'd seen in disrepair in the other room. We stop by the nearest scooter thing.

"Ashlei?"

"It'll work." She says in response to my unasked question.

"Ack!" I yelp, leaping backwards as she suddenly reaches out to activate it and falling on my butt. The scooter lifts ever so slightly off the ground and the buttons on the handlebars glow. Otherwise, nothing happens and Ashlei snickers quietly at my reaction. Rayne doesn't bother to try to hide her laughter and reaches for support from the wall as she doubles over, clutching her side. I glare at her, irritated, for a moment before turning my attention to Ashlei, who is now laughing outright.

"So nice to see you've regained your sense of humor" I snap, embarrassed. "Let us all rejoice." Her hazel eyes glint with humor at my sarcasm. I glare at her and the glint falters for a second and I feel a strange empathy again as I seem to sink into Ashlei's world.

I have to admit that through this entire ordeal, I've been harboring a slight bitterness toward my friend. In this moment, though, that bitterness evaporates. Rayne's words from lunch (it seems so long ago now) finally penetrate my stubbornness. Ashlei hadn't asked for this. She hadn't asked for any of it. She had done what she'd done for the good of the city and the people she loved. She had acted as selflessly as she always said she hoped she could be in a crisis. However, as cool as she thought the whole thing was, she was suffering for her selflessness. And I? Her best friend? What had I done to help that?

Nothing. I'd made it worse.

As I realize this, I'm surprised when she reaches out her hand to pull me to my feet.

"Ashlei, I-" I start, my voice anguished. I'm not entirely sure what I want to say.

"I want to show you something later." Ashlei whispers.

"What?" I whisper back, confused.

"I want to show you something later." She repeats. Rayne has wandered of to hide her laughter at my earlier reaction.

"Um…" I'm confused. What could she possibly want to show me that she doesn't want Rayne to know about?

"Please? Please let me." The look in her eyes and the pleading tone of her voice as well as the way her body tenses as if expecting rejection strikes a chord and I nod assenting. "Thank you." She relaxed and I nod again.

"We should really get out of here. It's starting to get late. Eventually your brothers are going to notice that you're missing. If they haven't already, that is." I walk over to where Rayne has finally managed to get her laughter under control. I grab her arm and drag her toward the door in a way the will seem to Ashlei as if I am still irritated at Rayne.

"It's not perfect." I mumble to Rayne. "But it's definitely a start back down the right path"

"Having Kara here will help." She mumbles back as she plays along with my ploy. Behind us, Ashlei cries out a protest at being left alone and starts after us. "They connect on a level different from the ones we connect with her on. I can console her and you can berate her, but Kara can reason with her. It is a good start though."

"What's a good start?" Ashlei gently tugs Rayne's arm from my grip.

"This door is a good start back to the city." Rayne covers easily, reaching out to activate the panel. "Come on, we should probably start back now." Ashlei freezes as she steps through the door. "Ashlei?"

"Don't worry. I just re-linked with Atlantis. We should be able to sneak back without getting caught now." I watch Ashlei and Rayne closely as they walk together ahead of me back into the more populated areas of the city.

The past six weeks have stressed our friendship. Ashlei had been absent and I had been irritable and stubborn. Somehow, we had survived it as friends, which gave me hope that we always would. Thinking of stressed relationships though… 

"Hey!" "I run to catch up to them. "I'm going to go find my dad. I have to…well…" I trail to a stop, searching for words. Rayne smiles and shakes her head.

"Go. We get it." She reassures me and Ashlei nods in agreement. Rayne makes a shooing motion with her hand. I grin and flash a look of thanks before running in the direction of the labs. I have things I need to say.

I hadn't actually made it to the labs. Running full tilt down the hallways, I'd turned a corner and skidded into my dad before he could stop. At his side had stood a beautiful, tan, dark-haired woman with engaging blue-green eyes. My mother, Marissa.

"Hello, Del." She had said with a secretive smile.

"Hey, Mom" I had responded with a nervous glace at my father beside her.

"I'll leave you two to it then." My mother had chuckled softly. She'd kissed my father on the cheek, hugged me, then left with a knowing glance between my father and myself.

"Marissa!" My father had protested.

"She's your daughter, Rodney." was all she had said in response before disappearing around the corner.

"I know. That's the problem." My father had muttered barely loud enough for me to hear before turning to look at me.

It had been awkward to start. Both of us tried to stutter out apologies we weren't used to giving in a polite form we weren't used to using. In the end, we just gave up and said what we wanted to say. Our conversation had a good deal more yelling than most apologetic conversations tended to have, but that was normal for my dad and I.

Once the conversation had dropped to a more reasonable decibel, we managed to get ourselves back to the same page. We parted in good moods, with no concern that the earlier argument would come between us. My dad and I are like that.

This hadn't been the first time we'd argued and it wouldn't be the last. The two of us are too stubbornly similar (or would it be similarly stubborn) to not argue, but I'm me and he's him and we care too much to stay mad for long. Mother finds it sweet in a way. Everyone else just thinks it's amusing.

My point is that as serious as the argument today had been, we'd gotten over and it wasn't going to be a problem. There hadn't been any touchy-feely apologies like most people get, but in a way, that…loud discussion had been our version of an apology. It was enough for us.

Once that had been settled, I'd come up to our tower, laid down, and fallen asleep.

I wake up what feels like minutes later to Ashlei standing over me. A glance at the clock tells me that the supposed minutes had actually been several hours.

"Ashlei," I groan, rolling over and pulling the blanket back over my head. The central room of the tower where I sleep is always colder then the surrounding rooms. "What could you possibly want at two in the morning?" The words come out in a garbled mumble that Ashlei has termed 'Del-morning-speak.' Luckily, this distorted language is something Ashlei is quite fluent in.

"You remember I said I wanted to show you something?" she whispers as she pulls me to a sitting position. I rub groggily at my eyes and notice Alan and Aaron still asleep on the floor outside her room from where they'd been keeping guard earlier. I chuckle inwardly and turn my attention away from them.

"Yes." I mumble back to her. When she says nothing but gives me a look like she's waiting for something I add "What, Now?"

"Mhmm. Tomorrow is a Saturday and we don't have classes, but with Kara showing up I think this is the last chance we have for a while." She does have a point. I groan and fumble around on what passes as my nightstand for a hair tie.

"Ashlei I swear to you if we get caught…" I swing my legs over the side of the bed and start searching for my shoes.

"We won't get caught." She promises. I cast another glance toward her brothers.

"If they wake up…"

"They're out cold. You know how they are on weekends. It'll be noon before they get up again." She gives me a pleading look. I sigh as I find my shoes and slip my feet into them. I notice that she's had the presence of mind to put on jeans but my sweatpants and t-shirt will have to do for this little adventure of hers.

"You better be right." She smiles and grabs my arm. I'm across the room in the transporter before I even realizes she's pulling on my arm. My reactions in the morning are nothing to be envied.

"I am." She responds with a trace of her old confidence. We get off the transporter and she drags me along behind her as she sprints throught the halls, occasionally ducking into labs or storage room to avoid being caught by the night patrols. We wouldn't actually get in trouble being out so late. The city isn't exactly closed off at night, there are people who work a night shift, but the guards get sort of antsy when people are up who aren't usually up. The kitchens are closed, but the mess hall always has a buffet of snacks and fruit and the like. There's a curfew imposed on children for reasons of safety, but Ashlei and I are both close enough to the non-curfew age that the guards usually let us alone. The General would hear about it though, and then he'd tell my father and then there would be questions about what we were doing out so late and why it couldn't wait until morning and if the way Ashlei was moving about was any indication, whatever this was wasn't something she wanted anyone else to know about. Her proficiency at knowing exactly where to duck when, however, was almost uncanny.

One time, when we had ducked into yet another storage closet I let my curiosity take over.

"Ashlei," I whisper, mindful of the guard on the other side of the door. "Why are you so good at this?"

"Partially because Atlantis is helping, but also because Kara and I sneak around like this all the time when she's here."

"You've never been caught?"

"I didn't say that. We've been caught several times, no so much lately as at first, but we have been caught. Most of the time it's been by other people sneaking around, though, so it hasn't mattered." She peeks out a crack in the door and determines the hallway to be safe again and we're off.

Thirty minutes, six more storage rooms, two labs, a gym, and three transporters later, we're standing in front of the doors to the chair room. Before I can ask what we're doing (it would be the seventeenth time, I should add) Ashlei has pulled me through the door she'd opened and into the room. The door swooshes closed behind us and there's a faint click as the door locks.

I should point out that the locks on the doors to this room are particularly strong. It requires either a strong gene (Lorne's or even Carson's) or a very determined and skillful scientist (Radek or Miko) to unlock the doors normally if they've been locked from the inside. A lockdown situation requires a stronger gene _and_ a better scientist (General Sheppard and my father, usually) to get the doors open. Recently, however, it has become nearly impossible to open a door Ashlei has locked, which means no one is getting in that door until Ashlei want them to get in.

"Ah…Ashlei? Why are we here?" I turn around to see her already standing by the chair.

"You'll see. C'mere." She waves me over and I go reluctantly. Whatever was going on was important to Ashlei and I had a sinking feeling that if I refused her, she'd go right back to where she'd been before our…experience this afternoon. Or she could get worse.

She sits as I step onto the platform and holds out her hand. I take it and she leans back and closes her eyes as she tells me to do likewise. I do, trusting her more that reason allows for. I hear the chair recline and wait patiently for something to happen. Nothing does and I'm about to ask her what the problem is when she pulls her hand from mine. Surprised, I open my eyes and am amazed to see, not the chair room, but some sort of pixilated virtual reality. Ashlei stands up and looks around.

"Well, it's not as good as the real one, but still, it's not to shabby."

"Real one? Ashlei, where are we?" She grins at my question and I'm amazed and overjoyed to see the smile reach her eyes.

"This," she spins around happily "is a virtual enviroment. It's not as good as the one I visit, but it's as good as I can get it for you." She grabs my hand and pulls me off the platform I've been standing on, which promptly disappears. Realizing I'm still confused, she elaborates. "You see, Del, You can't interface with the city the way I can. Of course, I can take you along with me when I do it, but that kind of dilutes the link. The pixilation of this place is the result of that dilution."

"Oh." I am aware that I sound like a moron. I am aware that the look on my face is ridiculously shocked for someone who grew up in a floating city, but I don't care.

"Delilah McKay, welcome to Atlantis' mainframe." Asheli's eyes focus on something behind me. Her smile widens and she grabs my shoulder to turn me around. "It is my very great pleasure to introduce you to Atlantis herself." I stare in amazement at the beautiful being who is every bit as Ashlei had described her.

"Hi." I breath, in a state of utter shock. The woman laughs her soft, sweet laugh.

"Hello. It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person. I've heard many things from Ashlei."

"It's nice to meet you, t— Ashlei talks about me?"

"Of course I do." She walks up behind me and slings an arm over my shoulder. "I even say nice things, sometimes."

I roll my eyes at her sarcasm and turn my head to mock glare at her.

"When Ashlei first asked me whether it would be possible to show you this place, I was surprised. No on had ever asked before, nor had they even wanted to show someone else. I believe that the beauty and the mystery are things they wanted to keep to themselves. I suppose it made them feel more important. When I gave it further thought, however, I realized that I should not have been surprised. She shares a bond of a different kind with you. Naturally, she would want to share in her secrets. You are very close and you share a kind of trust that exists without reason. It has taken time, but together Ashlei and I finally managed to create this place."

"So all this time, then, you've been working on a way to show me this?" I query in astonishment.

"Yeah. What do you think?"

"Ashlei," I breathe as I struggle to find the proper words. "This place is amazing. I don't— why would you ever want to share this with anyone?" she shrugs.

"Not anyone. Just you. I don't plan on dragging Alan and Aaron down here."

"I'll allow the two of you to speak. I merely desired to meet the person Ashlei always speaks of so highly."

"Atlantis! You weren't supposed to tell her that!" Ashlei protest, blushing slightly. She's always blushed very easily. Embarrass her even the slightest bit and her cheeks go pink. Atlantis smiles warmly in amusement and disappears.

'_As long as you are in this place, I can speak to you.' _I almost jump in surprise as her voice echoes through my head. A glance toward Ashlei shows her still protesting loudly. _'I will tellyou this, even though Ashlei does not want you to know. Since the beginning, she has wanted nothing more than for you to understand all of this. This is her greatest attempt. You have noticed how much all of this has changed her, but you have not seen her own hidden fears. You know as well as I what she has experienced in her short life already, but she has still always been there for you. Now she needs you to be there for her. Please do not let her down.'_

_I won't _I think back, though I'm not sure she can even hear me. _I won't._

"Hey, Del, you okay?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Fine."

"You sure? You sorta spaced on me there."

"Yeah, I'm sure." She doesn't look convinced, but she drops it anyway. There's an awkward silence before I finally give in and ask what I've wanted to ask for awhile now.

"Ashlei, why did you bring me here? Why did you work so hard to be able to show me this?" Something flickers for a moment in her eyes, but it's gone as quick as it came. With a sigh, she sits down on a pixilated bench.

"To be completely honest, I don't know. I just…I thought about not showing you this and it felt so wrong." She falls silent and pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them, resting her head on them sideways. "I don't understand it. Why does it feel this way? Why does it feel like you're the only one who can make everything right again?" Her eyes flicker again, but the time I recognize it for what it is. Fear, confusion. Anxiety. I walk over, sit next to her and throw my arms around her without hesitation.

"Because I'm the one who let it get so screwed up in the first place. Because that's my job. Because I'm your best friend and that's what you expect of me."

"I have no right to expect anything of you." She protest.

"Yes, you do. You have the right to expect that of me as your friend. You deserve to expect that of me. You deserve it," I continue, louder to be sure she's paying attention "because you've always been there for me, even though I haven't always been there for you. Lately, I haven't been there for you and I am so incredibly sorry. I'm here now though, and if you let me I'm going to help you fix this. It's going to take time, but we'll get there.

"Tomorrow, you and I are going to sleep. Late. We'll get up, go to lunch and then go meet Kara, who we will spend the rest of the day with. Anyone who tries to bother will be met with a resounding 'No' and a McKay death glare."

"You'd break out the death glare for me?"

"Who would be better than you? You're my very best friend, Ashlei. Oh, and that project? Unless Rayne protests, we're not even going to start until a day or two before."

"You're going to procrastinate?" She's utterly shocked now. I'm usually almost obsessive over getting things done as quickly as possibly so I no longer have to worry about it.

"If I thought we could get away with it and we hadn't gone through all that trouble to get the parts, I'd say we shouldn't do it at all." I tell her definitively. Her face lights up and I use that to justify procrastinating to my conscience. I look into her eyes and again feel like I'm sinking, but I also feel like I'm struggling harder, fighting the current that's pulling me down. "Oh yeah. One more thing." She looks at me worriedly. "Ashlei Marie Sheppard if you _ever_ wake me up at two in the morning again, I will tell your brothers about the trapdoor in your closet." She laughs so hard that she ends up clutching her side in pain with tears leaking out of her eyes. I laugh with her and keep her from falling off the bench.

"I'll keep that in mind." She says when she finally manages to calm down. "Let's go back." She grabs my hand and a second later I'm opening my eyes in the chair room.

"That was disconcerting." I mutter. Another quick glance into her eyes shows me that she's finally stopped struggling. She isn't sinking anymore, so things are back to normal. Or as normal as they ever get around here.

We make our way back up to the tower in the same stealthy manner we'd made it down. We don't get up until one the following afternoon, an hour before Kara shows up. Kara is as energetic and constantly curious as ever and it keeps us occupied. By the time we will get around to working on the actual project (despite my declaration, I will have already done all the research and written up the paper) the night before it's due and three days before the storm, we will be amazed to find the ferris wheel already completed. A note will sit beside it, typed so the handwriting can't be recognized.

'**We figured we'd save you the trouble.**'

It isn't signed.

But that won't be for another week and a half. For now, it's already after dawn because of the difference in passage of time in the virtual world, and we encounter Caleb on our way to Ashlei's room. He says nothing, but nods in approval. I wonder for a moment just how much he had to do with both of my encounters with my father today before realizing I don't care.

I'm asleep before I hit the bed, but I go to sleep with the knowledge that today I finally began to repay Ashlei for everything she's ever done for me. It's a good feeling to have.

**Epilogue**

"Aunt Nikki. So this is where you are." A young girl that is immediately recognizable as part of the Sheppard lineage stands in the doorway of the room. The old woman had recognized the signs of the girl's approach, but ignored it in favor of finding a good stopping place. An older man stands next to the girl.

"Jonathan," Nikki greeted the man as she stood. "And hello to you Miss Cora."

"Jon," the old woman directed her attention to the man. "Are you here to collect the children again?"

"Of course." The kids started protesting and he sighed. "As if I didn't know _that _was coming. Nikki, I'm supposed to tell you that your mother wants to see you for a moment in the control room." He and Nikki manage to round up the kids and get them to follow Jon out of the room.

"Grandma, I'd love to walk you back up to your room but, well, my mother is-"

"S'alright, Nikki dear. I can manage on my own."

"I'm here, though, so I can take you." Cora says happily, bouncing on her heels.

"Well, there you go then. Go on to your mother, Nikki." Nikki nods and starts down the hall as the young Sheppard helps the old woman to the door.

"Cora, you do know I can walk on my own perfectly well, don't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You are also aware that as a doctor before retirement, I am qualified to say when I do need help?"

"Yes, ma'am." The woman laughs at the girl's response as they start up the hallway and ruffles the girl's gravity defying black hair.

"Oh, how like your great-grandmother you are!"

"Ashlei? Really?" The hazel eyes are amazed and admiring at the mention of her grandfather's mother.

"Of course, dear. The hair is easily the first point of note, though you do keep it longer." Cora unconsciously reaches up to tug on a forelock of hair. "You're shorter than she was at your age, but not by much. You have the same basic stature. Your eyes are more to the green end of hazel, but my dear you've heard all this before, haven't you?" The girl nods. "It was also not what I was referring to, but you knew that too, didn't you?" Cora nods again before speaking.

"You meant her personality. No one's ever said that to me before."

"Probably because most of them don't remember well enough. Your grandfather might but…"

"Grandpapa never talks about her and he gets sad when I ask. Mama was too young to remember."

"He was very close to here" The old woman agrees. The two of them walk in silence for a moment before the younger gathers her courage and speaks again.

"Were you there? At her bonding, I mean?" Cora rushes the words and then looks away to hide her blush. The woman's eyes sparkle with laughter, but she refrained from vocalizing it. She looked at the girl destined to be the next Voqui and smiled warmly.

"I'd nearly forgotten your eighteenth birthday was coming up. Are they holding your bonding actually on your birthday?" They step into a transporter and moments later step out again in the Tower. Instead of going to her room, the woman ushers Cora over to a couch where they both sit.

"Mhmm."

"Is that why you came with Jonathan? To ask me about it?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry dear. There really isn't anything I or anyone else can tell you. You'll have asked your mother, I'm sure?" Cora nods. "She couldn't tell you much either could she?" The head of black hair shakes a 'no.' "It isn't really something anyone can explain. It's beyond words, I believe. Are you nervous?"

"Yes. No one can tell me what to expect and…what if it doesn't work or I do it wrong? Or what if I'm a terrible-"

"Hush now, Cora." The teen snaps her mouth shut. "You've had Nikki help you do the research right? Has any bonding ever gone wrong or the Voqui done badly?"

"Well, no"

"Then why don't you tell me what's really bothering you." There a long pause in which Cora hopes the old woman will revoke the question. When she doesn't, the young Sheppard sighs.

"I just…Why me? I'm the youngest of the three of us. Alexa's more obedient and better behaved. Trey is level-headed and responsible."

"And you?"

"Me? I'm just trouble." Cora answers automatically. The woman chuckles.

"Ahh. The pains of being a triplet. It runs in your family, you know. Skips every few generations, they say. Tell me, Cora, would you like to know a few little known and rarely mentioned facts about your predecessors?"

"Yes." The teen scoots closer eagerly.

"I thought you might. Your mother? Quite a temper. She's managed to keep it in check since having children, but she was very hot-headed when she was younger. She was also the younger of her generation. Your grandfather was very absentminded and irresponsible. He was also a class clown. Ashlei spent so much time down in the teacher's offices trying to appease them that they actually started keeping a special chair just for her. Also, he was and is quite irresponsible. Loses things constantly. And Ashlei herself? Dear child never since have I met her like. She was so mischievous. Always sneaking around at night, playing in the off limits areas. Procrastinated everything. You never knew what kind of trouble she and her brothers would get into next, and that's even after she was technically an adult."

"You're making this up."

"I am not. You can ask Atlantis herself when you bond to her and I did have a point. They say the Voqui gene is a random characteristic in the Voqui children, but I don't believe it. I believe that every child born to current Voqui shares that gene and Atlantis activates it in whichever child she believes to be most suitable and capable. She chose you."

"Then, you think I'll be okay?"

"I know you will, Cora." The girl jumps up and hugs the woman gently.

"Thank you." She then jumps up and dashes to the transporter; leaving, presumably, to go find her friends. The woman shakes her head in amusement, stands up, and gently lifts the tattered book off the table. She walks to her room and places the book in its place. She runs her fingers over the picture frame and doesn't act surprised in the slightest when two beings fizzle into existence beside her.

Both the newcomers are female. One is more glowy than the other with short dark hair and twinkling hazel eyes. The other gives the feeling of great age, though she herself appears to be very young.

"I was wondering when the two of you would show up." The old woman says calmly. The glowier one scoffs.

"Expecting Atlantis to appear after you talk to Cora is understandable." She gestures toward the other being who is clearly a hologram. "What reason do you have for expecting me, kiddo?"

"She's your great-granddaughter, Ashlei. I'd be surprised if you hadn't come. And I'm hardly one to be called 'kiddo' anymore." The old woman sits on her bed and surveys the pair before her as Ashlei flops into a chair.

"Young or old you'll always be a 'kiddo' to me."

"The two of you never grew up." Atlantis says with a sigh. "How is Cora?"

"Nervous." The old woman responds, "but that's to be expected. I did what I could to reassure her."

"She'll be fine. Quite the precocious one, isn't she?" Ashlei asks her friend, her fondness for her descendent evident.

"You only say that because she is so very like yourself." Atlantis laughs softly.

"She is precocious, but…Ashlei maybe if you talked to her?"

"You know I can't do that. I'm supposed to be dead. Not Ascended. If anyone finds out...My sweet little Nathan is still in mourning. He's gotten so much older and his health isn't very good. It might kill him."

"I know. I know. I just don't know what to say to her. She's tried asking her grandfather and her mother, but Nathan gets all sad when he has to talk about it and Samantha doesn't want to risk upsetting her daughter."

"As you said, there isn't really anything you can say. She must find her own way. When the time comes, I will guide her." Atlantis nods at the other two before letting her hologram fizzle out.

"I'd love to stay and be more social, but while they let me interact with you…they don't much like it. Just take care of my family. Especially Nathan and Cora, okay?"

"You know I will." The old woman says calmly. Ashlei smiles in acceptance and disappears in a flash of light. "Oh, Cora. If you're trouble then words do not exist to define Ashlei." The woman sits for a moment before deciding something. She pulls back out the tattered book and slowly begins to labor over an almost excruciatingly long e-mail. When she finally finishes, she sends it off to several people before going to get herself ready for bed. The only clue to the content of the emails lies in the subject box which reads "Calming, A Private Chapter."

**The End**

**A/N: **As ever your opinions will be wholeheartedly appreciated. I'm working on improving my writing so any advice you have to offer would be welcome. I hope everyone had excellent Holidays and will have luck and joy in the coming year.

Until Next Time,

Nimeria out.


End file.
